JHK’s Three-Act Play, Big Slide
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…
Visit the Big Slide Page to order, perform, or see sample scenes.

Ho ho ho! It’s that time of year again. Here’s JHK’s holiday classic: A Christmas Orphan.

11-year-old Jeff Greenaway hears his mom and dad argue one night after an office Christmas party. He infers from their garbled squabble that he is an orphan, found in a willow basket on the welcome mat outside their New York apartment. Thinking now that his parents are imposters, he steals away to Grand Central Station and buys a train ticket to Drakesville, Vermont, where he intends to start life all over again.Print | Kindle | Kobo (Digital) | Barnes & Noble (Digital)

Americans gathered around the hearth of CBS’s 60 Minutes must have been bemused to hear reporter Scott Pelley announce self-importantly that the US Department of Justice is investigating Lance Armstrong’s bicycling team for performance-enhancing drug use. Does it really matter if any pro athlete takes drugs? Why not throw Babe Ruth out of the Baseball Hall of Fame for drinking sixteen beers the night before a World Series opener? Or Ditto Mickey Mantle for that, plus smoking two packs of Marlboros in the dugout during every game.

Notice that Scott Pelley did not announce that the US DOJ is investigating Goldman Sachs, or Citi, or Merrill Lynch, or Bank of America or several other so-called banks for looting the American public and influence-peddling in the halls of government. Or the SEC and the CFTC for failing to regulate the trade in frauds and swindles. The window for that sort of action is closing, and with it the reasonable hopes of citizens in the legitimacy of institutions that manage things.

The failures in journalism are now so stupendous that there are only a few possible explanations.

1.The major media, hard pressed by declining revenues and the extremes of competition on cable TV and the Internet, are in thrall to corporate advertisers who expect cheerleading for the status quo in return.

2.Major media editors and producers – the officer corps of journalism – are not smart enough to tell the difference between what’s important and what’s not and can’t run their newsrooms.

3.Mainstream media only reflects the cognitive dissonance that pervades the collective imagination of a culture – too much noise to think coherently.

4.We really don’t want to know what’s going on – it’s too scary.

5. Sometimes a generation of leaders just fails.

For those of you interested in a digest of reality, here’s what’s going on:

•The global energy predicament really is a crisis, even though nobody is currently lining up at the gasoline pumps. It’s a crisis because peak oil is for real and oil is the primary resource of advanced economies, and there are no miracle rescue remedies (“drill, drill, drill,” shale oil, shale gas). Peak oil means that we can’t increase supply in relation to still-growing demand, which creates disturbances in the energy markets. Peak oil also leads directly to a crisis of capital (money), because a nation (an economy) that can’t get increasing energy “inputs,” can’t create more wealth, can’t generate more loans (debt), and most importantly can’t expect what we’ve come to think of as normal economic growth. This creates further disturbances and distortions in financial markets.

•Without that sort of growth you get stagnation and then contraction. We’re probably past the stagnation phase and into contraction. We tried to compensate for stagnation (and conceal it) by allowing the financial part of the economy grow from 5 percent of all activity to over 40 percent of all activity. In the process, banking changed from a boring utility aimed at directing capital into legitimate investment (highly regulated) to a swashbuckling realm of unregulated swindles having nothing to do with real capital allocation but rather aimed at the sales of worthless “innovative products” (CDOs, et cetera), the creaming off of huge transaction fees, the use of computers to game exchanges, colossal carry trades between banks and public treasuries (you borrow money at zero percent – for free! – and invest it in paper that pays, say, 2.5 percent and keep rolling it over), and let’s not forget pervasive accounting fraud practiced by government and private business to the degree that money matters are now completely opaque and dishonesty can run rampant. After a while, nobody can have faith in the way things work, and that is a dangerous situation because it leads to political problems. The ultimate question is: how does a society manage contraction?

•One way to think about it is to stop using the word “growth” and substitute the term “economic activity.” There are lots of useful things we can do to rearrange daily life in the USA that would put people to work, but they would tend to defy the status quo. We could recognize that peak oil means that we have to grow our food differently and make local agriculture a more up-front piece of the economy. We could rebuild the railroads so that people don’t have to drive everywhere. We could rebuild our inland ports to move more bulk freight on boats. Notice these are very straightforward activities, unlike the manipulation of financial paper and markets. We’re not interested in focusing on agriculture and transport reform. Business and political interests are arrayed against changing anything. Something’s got to give.

•Political problems arise when many people in a society lose faith that their institutions are competent, trustworthy, and fair, and seek ways to bring them down. We’re in a political crisis and we don’t know it. Other parts of the world know it, and more of them are finding out every day. Yesterday was Spain’s turn, as the governing party took a beating in local elections and unemployed young people moiled in the city squares. Many of them probably expected to work in corporate jobs. They may end up back on the farm or in the cork orchards. The rest of Europe has a lot to sort out, too, and after a half-century of being the world’s fairly-tale theme park, the terms of daily life have suddenly changed. The tensions between the requirement to adjust to change and the resistance to change will produce all kinds of disorder within and between the different nations of Europe. It will be hard to believe as it occurs, but essentially each nation, or region, will be thrown back on whatever resources it can muster, and that will be very difficult.

•The trouble in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is probably not so much over abstract ideas about “freedom” and “democracy” (we flatter ourselves to think so) as food scarcity and the pressures of exploding populations. The OCED nations might not care so much if this region didn’t produce so much of the world’s precious oil – but it does, of course, so we can’t help but meddle in the politics there. I would not bet on continued stability of the type that has prevailed for decades, and by that I just mean the expectation that regular supplies of oil will get to the market. The USA is pissing away vast money resources to keep these supply lines open. We’ve made an enemy of Persia (Iran) and they want to rule the region, so we are trying to make a baloney sandwich out of them with garrisons east and west in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s not working so well. Now, Persia is making noises about establishing missile bases in Venezuela. They may overstep on that one. Pay attention. China has a deep interest in keeping the oil supply lines open, and it’s possible, if the wells, pipelines, and terminals are not wrecked by whatever happens next in MENA, that China will get some oil even if we don’t. They offer engineering aid; we just send guys in desert camo with night-vision goggles and guns. Japan, you can possibly forget about. I maintain that they will be going medieval, especially now that they’ve foresworn further nuclear power development.<
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•If the US is politically nervous, it is not showing a whole lot at the moment, but there is so much potential for financial havoc and economic hardship that I have a hard time imagining the 2012 election will play out as many suppose – another red-blue pie-eating contest bought-and-paid-for by Wall Street. We’re cruising straight into some kind of money crisis that is going to spin heads. This isn’t the first time I’ve said we could wake up one morning and find a Pentagon general in charge of things. If US economic history is any rule, Barack Obama would just be plain un-reelectable. But would anybody really vote for such a bumbling, glad-handing Babbitt non-entity as Tim Pawlenty? The things that really could tip the USA over are boring issues like interest rates and currency values – and the rule of law in money matters. They can’t compete for sex appeal with Lance Armstrong and whoever the latest incarnation of Lindsay Lohan is these days.

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. His novels include World Made By Hand, The Witch of Hebron, Maggie Darling — A Modern Romance, The Halloween Ball, an Embarrassment of Riches, and many others. He has published three novellas with Water Street Press: Manhattan Gothic, A Christmas Orphan, and The Flight of Mehetabel.

Hello Cabra1080,
You and others are being childish. It would be useful if you actually post a comment about the article that was just posted. I know that this will not discourage you or others that engage is a silly competition that is totally meaningless, superficial and a race to the bottom of the gene pool for this behavior.

I drove up to Lowell MA this weekend. Talk about the shape of things to come. It looks like our future. Everything was in need of some kind of repair.
But on the flip side, a room at the Foxwoods casino was going for $400 on Saturday night.
An odd juxtaposition. Every bridge and overpass in CT and MA looked like it was rusting from the inside out while the casino was able to charge an arm and a leg for a room.
It’s important to be distracted by flashing lights and ringing bells I guess.
Aimlow Joe was herehttp://www.aimlow.com

James – It continues to amaze me how we Americans are so focused on the minutiae of individual indiscretions pumped up by our media machine, and yet we consistently ignore the astounding evil that our institutions perpetrate daily upon the planet and the multitudes that inhabit it. The latest issue, surrounding the head of the IMF, is case and point. We are locked on the charade and ignorant of the entire stage that has been set for ongoing abuse and our willing self-delusion. Surely, we are doomed. Enjoy today’s offering. As always,
Sandy, the kulturCritickulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/the-imf-clusterfuck-and-the-african-queen/

CBS?!?
James, you must be the only one left in the world that still pays attention to the CIA/government mafia propaganda outlets.
You want some truth, you better pay attention to people like Alex Jones, Max Keiser, Alan Watt (cuttingthroughthematrix), Douglas Rushkoff, Antony Sutton, Carroll Quigley, etc.

James, to address your points would require sober, reflective thought, all across America. Best luck with that.
Note that the losers in the Spanish elections were those calling for austerity. Does anybody think that our Congresscritters will ignore that reality?

Great summary of the issues facing us and one well worth waiting for. Speaking of which, what happened?
I’m surprised you didn’t write about The Rapture as a non-event the news media would rather report on than our real problems. I did, as I thought a blog about the collapse of civilization would be remiss if it didn’t have something to say about the supposed beginning of the end of the world. I guess you didn’t agree. However, we might agree on the following:

No supernatural causes will be needed to bring about the collapse of civilization; the interaction of human behavior with limited resources can do that all by themselves. That end will be completely natural, not supernatural.

As for managing contraction, the New York Times reported on the Detroit suburb of Troy facing that issue. I blogged about it on Crazy Eddie’s Motie News, where I have a link to the original article. It’s a sign that contraction is hitting even the most well-off areas.

Good points, JHK
Let’s just define the news as the practice of misdirection. When I saw the subject matter I went out to do an errand, as my guy pointed out, when everyone’s doping how can you win if you’re not?
Of far more interest was the Scott Pelley interview NSA whistleblower Tom Drake, who is charged under the Espionage Act for exposing the NSA choice to go for “Trailblazer”, a massively expensive program.
That program epitomizes the neoliberal scheme to give billions of tax payer dollars to private contractors when in fact they already had a government program to be unveiled in Jan 2001, called “ThinThread” with a far smaller pricetag that could have averted 9/11.
In deep frustration, Drake spoke to a journalist in Maryland about this oh, shall we call it misdirection of tax-payer funds. Now he stands trial for espionage.
How ironic that the war criminals go unscathed and an American whistle blower now faces 30+ years in jail if convicted.
As Bill Moyers pointed out recently we are about to become a different kind of country and it’s not a democracy.

All I can say is wow, what a powerful and spot on summation. The media failures indeed, and what a gift to have someone out there willing and able to tell is like it is. A great big thank you and a keeper post.alttransbikes.blogspot.com/

Of course you’re right, JHK, about the deafening silence of the non-prosecutions of our great plutocratic looters, Goldman, Citi, et al. That nadly needs to happen, and here’s hoping Eric Schneiderman enjoys a sexually fulfilling marriage and is not the next Lone Ranger to get caught in a hotel-room rape sting. And if these prosecutions don’t happen, we will be living an Orgy of Moral Hazard.
But one-and-a-half cheers, at least, for the investigation of Lance Armstrong. Babe’s sixteen beers (and six steaks, and ten eggs) before the big game didn’t give him an edge, for Chrissake. Armstrong’s ‘alleged’ doping most definitely did, plus it was part of a patriotic con job, same with McGwire, Sosa et al. ‘saving baseball’ after the ’94 strike…
Cuthbert J. Twillie “Novelties & Notions”

Many many problems…but really only one true solution.
Get your own house in order.
*Get your body healthy – get off medications, eat real food and do some exercise.
*Get your mind clear – turn off the tv, go out in the natural world, sit quietly
*Get ready to adapt to the changes that are here.http://wanderingsagewisdom.blogspot.com

I am surprised that you watch 60 minutes which has not been a show worth a bucket of warm spit for years. Maybe it is trivial, however, but I do think the fall of Armstrong is a tragic end to what apparently was a fairy tale. He was not just a user, he was a pusher, or so they say. Too bad because I am sure he was a pretty good athlete without the EPO.
Well, anyway, if those drugs really work, maybe we could use them to get people off their asses to walk and bicycle around in lieu of the automobile.
I don’t know, if you like you say, Japan will go medieval. They are a resourceful and intelligent people with a long history of simplicity and austerity. Maybe they will rediscover their roots and find a way to survive tolerably in an energy and resource constrained world. We may need them as a model.

One other bullet that could be added is the increasingly hostile weather. Just last night, a mega-tornado (or multiple tornados) ripped through Joplin, Missouri last night flattening a lot of the city and killing multitudes of people. The massive flood on the Mississippi is still taking its toll as the New Orleans area is getting submerged. Just a few weeks before tornados did a big number in the South.
The sheer destruction of recent months due to intense and unusual weather events is overwhealming. The amount of Federal disaster aid events and the costs of these events is increasing as well. This increasing violent weather activity is hitting the United States in terms of life lost, damage to structures and infrastructure and economically in ways like never before. Is there a trend developing here? Global Warming/Climate Change maybe?
If the number and severity of weather events continues to increase in the future this alone could drive a major change in the living arrangements and economic situation.

Could not agree more with you. 60 Minutes is part and parcel of our intentionally misleading media, and not interested in exposing fraud and corruption that is destroying this country. At least Lance Armstrong had an honorable goal with his supposed doping, unlike our politicians, who do their own doping while they enhance their power and wealth through corruption and intimidation. As far as a military coup, that might be the only thing that can save us, so bring it on, please.

Wow Jim what an article! Talk about a dose of reality, you are spot on Jim, now pass the tums. I feel some serious heartburn coming on.
Does anyone really watch 60 minutes anymore? And why pick on Lance, I guess they figure a cancer survivor is a good target for persecution, and anyway the guy probably was put on some real nasty chemo meds to beat the cancer. So who could tell if he used those meds for cancer treatment or performance enhancement. What a crock.
So glad to see someone discussing the financial situation. I have a question about that whole mess, what the hell are these thieves doing with all the money they stole? Really after the first few billion doesn’t money become a moot issue for them. I mean you can only buy so many mansions, cars,yachts, etc… Where’s the money?
The situation in Japan has gone from disastrous, to seriously disastrous with hardly a peep about it onCNN or Fox. Harvey Wasserman has called for an international team to focus every bit of resources available to the human species to address the situation. But I don’t expect any action frm the current political system, they are to busy trying to secure oil supplies. As if oil matters when you glow in the dark with a nice radioactive tan.
loveday

Thanks, Jim for yet another synthesis of cogent thought and analysis. The DSK imbroglio provided the press a convenient cover relieving them of any serious dissection of the life-support status of European economics.

What I like that is happening around me is many neighbors are quietly growing more fruit and vegetables instead of ornamentals in their gardens.
Also, I see more people walking to and from the grocery store.
There is hope, at least on the mico scale.

My personal actions can’t save the world, or the nation, but maybe my ideas can start something…#THINKPOSITIVE
Dear Clusterfuckers,
I will keep installing SOLAR PANELS, both for electricity and hot water. Plant more and more gardens, read Tripptickets permaculture etiquette blogs, Ride the electric bicycles, get this freakin electric car project done, install EV charging stations, install more rain barrels, teach kids sustainability, hyper-mile the ICE rides, give my community a real feeling of community, give up on hollywood paper money million stacks dreams and happily settle for an offgrid hand built shack in the city, maybe with a chicken coop too…
So will there be more people or zombies in the coming days???
PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

Thank you for my Monday morning fix of peak oil doom. The interminable positivism of the corporate media is beyond merely beginning to drive me nuts.The major media will get it AFTER whatever it is has already happened at some point in the future, that is.
On at least an instinctual level I have expected very little from the economy now for nearly twenty years. I view people who confidently plan for the future making various entangling arrangments as little more than mental midgets [or is it intellectual dwarves?]. My next reading project is “Bright Sided” by Barbara Kingsolver [I think] which ostensibly is about how we’ve done ourselves in with our relentless positive thinking. Such as, send all the kids to school forever, nobody is too fucking stupid to absord the secondary level of education. Well bullshit. Were standards actually enforced on that level two thirds of the population would have to settle for an eighth grade education then an apprentice card in a trade, just as during the Victorian era before all this grade inflation kicked in. Refer to: Studs Lonigan by Farrell.
One of the corporate media’s most egregious sins of the moment is their relentless drumbeat to the effect that if you’re unemployed it’s your own fault for not going to college. What about all the unemployed people with master’s degrees that I know? That is the ones who are still surviving being unemployed, as not all of them have survived at this point.
Written like a true History Channel Prophet of Doom Mr. Kunstler!

Though it is contrary to the point of this piece, I’m going to address the Lance Armstrong allegations, cross-posted from where I posted this elsewhere today:
This is so backwards.
In a Nation where +6 American million school children in the USA today are *compelled* to take the Performance Enhancing Drug of Ritalin® each and every day it is the very height of Hypocrisy to shame and persecute our Professional Athletes with these pointless and retarded Witch Hunts for doing the same thing.
BTW, the kids aren’t stupid, and they can see right through it, despite being all hopped up on their Legal Prescription Goofballs.
What we need to have is a complete Ban on *all* Drug Testing in all Professional Sports, to include The Olympics and Tour de France.
Lord knows how many years of invaluable medical research, (that could aid 100s of millions of people the world over), that we’re losing because of these ridiculous Puritanical Standards being needlessly imposed on our Society and Culture.

Cabra1080
Excellent point! In fact, we could say the mother nature is getting the last word in on our rampant abuse and destructiveness to the ecosystems. For too long we have acted with impunity, believing the Christian charade… that we are masters of the globe. Well, not so fast… she is gonna keep on hitting us now, until we’ve run out of power.

Would that be that was only CBS.
Wrote this on Saturday during the Height of our Global Corporate Mass Media’s Bloody Red Meat Rapture Feeding Frenzy:
At this very moment there are currently about +50K pissed-off, Los Indignados, Spaniards out protesting, as they have been for this entire last week, starting on the 15th of May.ustream.tv/channel/motionlook
Surrender, Dorothy.
Bullshit Rapture stories on Google News:
all 5,418 news articles »news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Rapture
Spanish Protests:
all 1,715 news articles »news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Spain+Protests
—
Comment just posted on the NY Times’ FB Wall:
Journalistic Malpractice.
Sigh.
This stream has been live from Spain for the last day:ustream.tv/channel/motionlook
They’ve been out there for a week now, enough time to completely taken over the scaffolding of that building on the left.
Can’t imagine anything like this happening in the USA, and even if it did, I won’t be counting on the Old Grey Lady of the NYT to report it.
Why is the NYT even covering this complete NON STORY?
What is *wrong* with you people?
Are you giving the Anti-Austerity/Unemployment Protests, which are REAL, and which have been going on for a FULL WEEK in Spain, the same level of coverage as this patently ridiculous religious story?
No, of course you’re not doing that.
Instead, you’re shilling story from a KNOWN, babbling 89 year old, FRAUDster, who has made tens of millions of dollars off of this Long Con Scam of his.
Nice to know where the State of American Journalism is today.
Shameless.
And disgraceful.

“The failures in journalism are now so stupendous that there are only a few possible explanations.”
Well, well. You list 5 reasons but should have included a 6th. For the most part (aside from the Washington Times, Fox News and a few talk shows) journalists, work for liberal media. If the news isn’t getting out what is it that the libs are trying to hide? Possibly, that the lib agenda, free cheese for all/lowest common denominator as a touch-stone ain’t fucking working. Not here nor in any other country on the planet.
Why is that? Well the libs will tell you its just because we haven’t tried hard enough. “We have to try even harder to be more equal”. So, by all means, the ludicrous failure of this policy (it goes against human nature for crying out loud, only the fucking clueless/hopeless want the same for everyone) will go unreported. Nothing wrong here. Keep moving, nothing to see…(Sure there isn’t.)

Interesting that JHK wrote about the media since it was on my mind after a short binge of catching up with the Daily Show for some needed fluff entertainment. JS exclaimed that the “news” was making it too easy for his show to lampoon. “This has gotten so easy it’s not even fun anymore.”
This had me thinking about how the media, the “infotainment industry” has become trapped in time and is so stupid that pointing out the failure of “journalism” is, in the words of JS, not even fun anymore. On NPR on my drive upstate to renovate my building on Main Street and count the new vacant store fronts in a town that could be thousands of others in the NE, NPR was discussing the new media and how everyone with a blog is filtering the news and passing it on to others because there is so much information out there and blah blah blah…. is there really any information out there in cyberspace, or just people (like myself) feeding at the same scant feedlot of limited sources – our own echo chamber of blogs, links, and IMHOing as few of us are getting to see primary source documents, talk directly to “leaders” and know what’s really happening….
My own un-sourced ranting….http://www.schwerpunkter.wordpress.com

That’s pretty good and unfortunately accurate too. But I can’t agree it won’t happen again . I fact I expect next time it will be a freakin carnival. Take Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and the other not so serious names being thrown around to spread fear. It’s enough to make one loose one’s mind and vote for Obama again.
And that’s the plan.

Meanwhile, our illustrious Doorman In Chief is partying in Ireland, sucking down some Guinness. CNN says he’s “searching for his roots”. If this weren’t so unbelievably fxcked up, it’d be hillarious. Party on, Garth!digbysblog.blogspot.com/

It’s Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote Bright Sided and thank you for mentioning it. I was unaware of this book. I’ve read her others, including my favorite: Nickel and Dimed, on Not Getting By in America.
I’m downloading Bright Sided to my Kindle.

The latest issue, surrounding the head of the IMF, is case and point.
===========
Kultur, you are probably some one’s favorite aunt or uncle and all that but there is something annoying about your showing up early each Monday to say “ditto” to JHK’s latest essay and leave your business card (link).
And by the way, the expression is “case in point.”

James – you wrote a most excellent essay this week. Very well organized, concise and yet detailed enough to outline all the problems encompassing “peak everything.” This piece stands on its own with respect to any attempts for clarification.
It really is just a matter of those with the power being able to keep it – and those who grow lacking in comforts continuing to endure without notice, accountability or redress.
I am no expert and certainly no “wiser” than anyone else when it comes to understanding human nature – but if there be one thought that keeps me up at night -it is that there is no stopping the miscreants at the tops of their financial empires from bringing about a new world order of such terrifying horror and massive global desperation that it will make the Great Depression and World War II look insignificant.
It will be interesting to see if any meaningful social-political subdivisions can be formed to resist or otherwise sustain themselves comfortably through these conflagrations. I sleep better knowing that there are others who share my daily nightmares of “modern society.”

There’s two different worlds you’re talking about.
The old one, described on network news, has
certain types of problems that can be talked
about, and the real world, described by
Internet reporters such as yourself, has
certain types of problems that sound too
eccentric to be plausible.
The old world cannot exist in the face of these
new types of problems. Reporters are hired based
on an understanding, usually an unspoken understanding, of what our world is really all about.
The types of problems you are describing mean
that the old world is soon to pass. From a reporter’s point of view, such talk belongs
on the opinion pages, and is therefore not
their job.
It takes somebody at the top to lead the way.
There’s plenty who could, but they’re not likely to get the opportunity.
The solution is to keep trying to get the message across, and not be discouraged when the progress you’re making is not readily apparent.

Kulturcritic- i am no fan of Q and his schoolmarmish ways, but he nailed you. Lick Jim’s balls and post your link… cheese n crackers. Make your point here, or fuck off. Same to all you blog-pimpin’ ho’s.

wow, what a powerful and spot on summation.
============
Drink, it’s not just you … there’s a slew of posters out there that continue to use the worn out phrase “spot on.” I grow weary. Can someone please think up a NEW way to say “Jim, I am in total agreement!?”

I agree with JHK that there are a lot of good things that could be done to manage the change we need to make if we are to come out better for the experience of the past sixty misguided years.
However, I suspect that at the higher levels of global economic planning, a decision has been made to run the USA into the ground through unwinnable military adventures and the general prostitution of our federal government for the benefit of whichever industry gives the biggest campaign contributions.
More wars are planned, with the media trying to drum up support as we speak. Syria may be next. Maybe Pakistan, too. The news that Iran wants to place missiles in Venezuela sounds like a perfect reason to invade them and try to secure their oil for our needs.
I missed that story. Who released that juicy tidbit, Haaretz? Sounds like a counter-move to Obama’s recent proposal that Israel should go back to their 1967 borders.
If history is any predictor, our government and private contractors would probably screw up the oil production of Venezuela rather than expedite it, just as they did in Iraq. Remember? Iraq oil was supposed to pay for its own regime change.
I see China and the countries in that vicinity coming out on top — but not without a fight from the country that has “The Most Powerful Military In the World”.
Whatever your plans for avoiding the collapse of America, protect your health for the day you need it: http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com

The Justice department is surrounded by festering pools of political corruption, but they continue to masturbate over drugs in sports. The financial sector, the oil and gas sector, and the military industrial sector are cancer causing diseases totally infecting the rest of the nation.
Adams and Jefferson would call for an armed civilian uprising to take down these corporate vampires. They risked their lives and the lives of their families to go up against the royal corporate monarchists, which are basically the same what lives inside Goldman Sachs, Exxon, Bank of America, FOX, GE, Halliburton, and the rest–corporate monarchists.
The field of Grotesquely Oligarchian Psychopathetics– GOP–
and their leached Democ-rats are leading the nation into more wars and poverty.
And all that they do is titillate themselves over drugs in sports, which they impregnate their mistresses and frequent their hired hookers.
The corporate monarchists will do whatever they can to keep Obama in power, since he is doing their bidding. If he were to be defeated, then so goes our Federal Judges and a return to 1948.http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Today’s entry is even more foreboding on the second read through….the “we could wake up one morning and find a Pentagon general in charge of things” part strikes a resounding chord.
As the days go by, one day into the next, I’ve been having a good deal of that…..”we could wake up one morning and……..” feeling lately. Who knows what will shake out of that but we can be sure the major media will jump to the front and pretend they were on it all along.alttransbikes.blogspot.com/

Some two thousand years ago, the Jewish civilization (at the time a combo of Judea and what was left of Israel) was in steep decline, when a young sage named Joshua Ben Joseph observed that “the people will swallow a camel but choke on a gnat.” It’s what was apparent last night on CBS: the people don’t want the hard truth – even in small portions. So they are fed great gobs of pablum. All the news that’s fit to sell!

“Take Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump…”
No. Please don’t take them. Trump is, was and always will be a self promoting asshat. Newt? Give me a fucking break. He is so morally corrupt and so reprehensible there is not a serious Republican that gives him a farthing of a chance. Palin? Nope. Not that she wouldn’t probably be much, much better than Obama but she ain’t gonna run. And if she does, her negatives run about as high as Hillary Clinton and as such she could never be elected.
So, lets not talk about any of these clowns again. Because they ain’t gonna happen. Pawlenty? Jimmie wants to dismiss him with a simple “…would anybody really vote for such a bumbling, glad-handing Babbitt non-entity as Tim Pawlenty?” Well why not do a little home work on the guy. He happens to come from pretty blue collar stock. His old man drove a milk truck, his moms died when he was 16. And yet he worked his way through college and law school and became a Governor of a pretty liberal state.
Herman Cain? Pretty compelling story. Black, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He is a former deputy chairman (1992–94) and chairman (1995–96) of the civilian board of directors to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Cain’s mother was a cleaner and his father a chauffeur yet he persevered through Morehouse College with a BA and received his Masters in computer science from Purdue. You know the idiot Michelle Bachman? She has an advanced degree in tax law.
There will be others who step forward. Many will be painted by the liberal press as inept buffoons but they are anything but. Simply because they do not fall into a socialist agenda, close-minded morons will package them into something that can be easily dismissed.
Which brings us back where? To Obama. Been there, done that. The man is a fucking world class disaster. Want to continue down this road? Buy the faulty, liberal, media logic that every candidate other than Obama is an imbecile. And be prepared to bend over and spread ’em.

As I plan my route to self-sufficiency via rural Maine, I cannot help but wonder about the similarities between present day USA and Rome 476 AD. Morally bankrupt leaders, food and energy running out, a dishonest financial systems and apathetic citizens.
Would guess that in the year 2500, humans will be looking back at the end of America’s empire during the 21st century. Perhaps Twain was right: history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

Mr Bongo and Mr Shecky
What have we got here a pair of hall monitors? I do not see anything remotely resembling intelligence emanating from either of you two. Go sit in the corner and gossip about something!!

The Lance Armstrong story is a joke, just like the Michael Vick stuff and the Barry Bonds sideshow. (In Vick’s case, sure, dog-fighting is cruel and venal, but it is nothing compared to the pillaging of a planet, and more dogs will be abandoned (or eaten) by the newly-poor than Vick ever saw. And Vick, who faces physical danger every Sunday each fall to entertain the corn-fed, the bran-dead and the Goldman-Citi-JP Korgan crowd, too, at least earns his money honestly.)
I could care less about whether Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, et al, do, since I don’t have to watch, and their real or imagined crimes cause little damage in the real world.
I didn’t watch ’60 Minutes’ and almost never do. When they report the arrest of the people who looted us or who bomb and torture in our names, as our government, I’ll tune in. If the power’s still on, that is.

Global Warming/Climate Change MAYBE? There’s no maybe about it. Unfortunately, because people refused to believe how human activities have been impacting the planet, and because our so-called “leaders” did absolutely nothing but obstruct those of us who tried to do something, it is now too late to avert these catastrophes.

Herman Cain: Black. You listed that as his first qualification for being President. For alot of people, that’s all that matter as per Obama. I didn’t know you were with them but you evidently you kind of are.

“Peak oil means that we have to grow our food differently and make local agriculture a more up-front piece of the economy.”
We’re doing this. Please see http://www.friendlyaquaponics.com.
Aquaponics is the most effective way to grow natural, organic food in the history of humanity. Compared to in-ground farming, it uses 2% of the water, 20% of the human labor, and 50% of the energy (and does not use petrochemical energy at all, and hence can be powered by a windmill, solar panels, or biogas!)

The situation in Japan has gone from disastrous, to seriously disastrous with hardly a peep about it onCNN or Fox.
===========
Yes Love, our attention spans have grown extremely short and the media recognize it.
It was only January and how many remember Jared’s last name?
June 15, 2011 LA Times headline: Terrorists Detonate Huge Nukes In NYC and London
June 19, 2011 LA Times headline: Maria Shriver Inks Talk Show Gig

The role of drugs in society is huge. Remember how big sports are in this culture. These guys are role models for our youth. That makes it important.
Britain went to war with China to make them keep importing their Opium. Many say that we grow Opium overseas to support our other nefarious activities. Illegals are turning our National Parks into pot farms – manned by armed guards.
Maybe sports figures shouldn’t be our heroes. In which case, someone else will be. And whether they used drugs will then be an issue.
In Spokane, the Feds keep raiding medical marijuana facilities. At this point, I think the main issue may be that they can’t stand the idea of States having any rights to make their own laws. But bribes from the big growers in California to keep it illegal and expensive sure don’t hurt either.

Shecky, I’m afriad there’s a lot more to say about the long emergency than Jim bothers with. His job seems mostly to be getting people tuned to the seriousness of the situation. And apparently loads of people are, more every week, judging by the comments section here. But he doesn’t say dick about HOW to transition, and so you get a lot of links posted around here to sites that do. Please forgive the blog posters who are trying to save your anonymous ass for no good reason other than the fact that most of them are just genuinely good people.
I certainly don’t need your competition for dwindling resources, but I also see strength in numbers of prepared individuals. If you don’t wish to be part of the remnant than good on ya, and godspeed.

I think what I love most about that video you posted was the amount of TIME it took for SOMEBODY to get the heck out of the car to check things out! I’ve been driving for quite a few decades and regardless of if I’m alone or with others, the instant the car gets stuck, breaks down, runs out of gas, we’re out on the pavement. We are either trying to find out what happened, pushing the damned thing, calling for help, or god forbid, walking. Mind blowing display of how NOBODY knows what the hell they’re doing!

Jim—great column as per usual, but one thing I’d quibble with. I think the Repubs have written off 2012. It’s not that they think Obama is doing a great job—in normal circumstances, an economy this lousy would cause lines of applicants to show up at local news stations. But anybody smart enough to grasp the realities that you’re pointing out here understands that the person who inherits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day 2013 will do so when a whole flock of black swans is idling on the White House lawn. Obama’s strategy at this point seems to be ape W and kick the can down the road to November. And if he survives that election, he’ll get to give us a reprise of all the speeches we got angry about when Jimmy Carter first delivered them 33 years ago.

JHK, you’re only now observing what has been creeping into TV for 30yrs? When news departments disappeared in the 70s and those units fell under the authority of the entertainment divisions of these companies, EVERYTHING changed. News IS entertainent now. Our local news now shows house fires from Topeka, shootings from Denver, car wrecks from Tampa. Not because these have ANYTHING to do with local news, but because they are deemed more ‘gripping’ than our local, boring, central VA news.
The TV watching American public doesn’t have the stamina (spelled ‘attention span’)to endure the reporting of the long emergency. Frankly, they’ve been so conditioned to pay attention only to the latest ‘crisis’ that our local station now rates the popularity of the previous weeks’ ‘MOST IMPORTANT’ stories based on the number of net hits the story receive on their site. Again, who cares?
The tv watching public also lacks the international awareness to care about the protests in Spain or the continuing collapse of the Greek government or the revolutions in the middle-east. Why? Because our schools are teaching students about multi-culturalism, the environmental impact of lawn mowers and spending 2 weeks of classrome time making a forest eco-system out of paper meche’. This is not to diminish the importance of our impact on the environment, but it is taught as a religion rather than as a necessary component of life. Multi-culturalism is B.S. plain & simple.
The elites of this country have worked very hard to dumb down public education in order to make the masses more easily controlled. Control the information and you control what is perceived as the truth. We have to go to foriegn media to find out what is REALLY happening in the U.S. Unless, of course, you want to know who won American Idol or which beer BHO drank in Ireland.
I was on the net, yesterday, searching rural properties with 20 or more acres. Small farms. My 12yo daughter asked me why I was looking. So I spent almost an hour explaining peak oil and resource depletion. I told her that I want her and her brother to be armed with real world skills that will be needed, when the resources run out or become impractical or too expensive to obtain. I immediately regretted bursting her optomistic bubble.

There is hope, at least on the mico scale.
=============
I googled “mico scale” and came up with the link below but I can’t tie it to what you’re talking about. Please fill me in.mico.com/products/images/140_docfile.pdf

Getting the rail roads up and running again.
Great idea!!!
Hey, I’ll bet that the TSA perverts would love having the rail roads running again; that would mean more people, including children, for them to grope and order around. I can see it now, people give up individual vehicles to only learn that they have to have their balls and titties groped by sub-humans with badges and uniforms.
Great idea!!!! I’m sure lots of sheeple will go for this.
Welcome to police state Amerika where the slaves think they’re free (e.g. to travel, etc).

I wonder if the Obaminator’s latest gambit to bring “peace to the middle east in our lifetime” is just another attempt to divert public attention from America’s monumental economic problems. If it is, then Obama risks making a blunder of historic proportions. Remember the former Yugoslavia? Once that nation ceased to exist as a viable entity, a nasty turf war broke out among the different ethnic groups over who would get the biggest piece of the pie. Now imagine Israel retreating behind its’ pre-1967 borders and you have the recipe for World War 3. Unable to defend itself against the combined forces of Islamic extremism that are hell-bent on its’ annihalation, Israel might not have any choice but to deploy the nuclear option. This is not a good time to be asking Israel for concessions because no concession short of the complete exterminiation of the Jewish state will be acceptable to the Palestinians.

One of the reasons why Americans have such low social cohesion compared to some other cultures, which I won’t bother to name, is our very worship of success and competition. As Lao Tzu pointed out, athletics are corrupting in that they teach adherents to prevail by any means in what is essentially ritualized violence, or forcing your will upon others through main force.
This is the same mentality which labels people who use public transportation losers. After all, we must all control the means to do as we wish whenever we wish and damn the consequences. So yes, we will sacrifice all to retain our independent modes of transport, and moreover, to make our privately owned vehicles as over-powered as possible in order to squander as much fuel as our incomes will permit.
So we’re screwed. After all, only losers ride the bus to work.

” This is not a good time to be asking Israel for concessions…”
And yet I saw the Sunday commentators registering disbelief that this Jewish upstart had the audacity to lecture the President in the WH. Well maybe if fucktard, hadn’t come out with his brilliant statement prior to Bibi’s plane landing. What a fucking idiot. And this when we have no IDEA how any of the countries in the ME are going to come through the current upheaval. Every current, single leader (including Netenyahu) could be gone in a matter of months.
Yet this simpleton of a President is going to dictate the borders of a foreign nation? When he doesn’t even have control of our own Southern border.

Americans, seen by the rest of the world, are the least aware of world events, geography, politics and economics. CBS enables this of course, but they are not alone. When Larry Tisch took control of CBS and turned the news division into essentially an arm of the entertainment CBS division, well, here we are, where Scott Pelley expresses outrage at the idea that Armstrong might have done doping, while the bankers go free, the DOD goes free, a lying White House goes free. But most Americans don’t know this or don’t care, so it flies. It will be generations before the story of America’s downfall and stupidity can be fully told with political, economic, spiritual and intellectual clarity. Right now, it is chaos. We love (i.e. don’t notice) that TSA fondles our kids and wives, but we think it is ‘terrible’ that Lance might have done EPO. This is a sign of a very very sick society. Generations later perhaps the depth of our mental illness will be accurately documented. We Americans stand up for nothing except the winning team on the weekend.

Being a bicycle racer for 25+ years, researching the issue of PED (performance enhancing drugs) in my sport and having met Tyler Hamilton, I would like to comment on your post, much of which I agree on. But let me focus on my thoughts with drug use in bicycle racing.
If you don’t care about the health of athletes, go right ahead and call for a ban on testing. Clean athletes will get beaten and the people using the max levels of EPO, HGH and steroids will get cancer or die from other side effects, such as thickened blood due to excessive red blood cell percentages. I guess when they are really tired, such as mid way through the Tour de France, it would be OK to snort some cocaine at the bottom of a brutal mountain climb?
Regarding Ritalin use, I think that the medical profession needs to look in the mirror and chant “do no harm”. Our whole society has been sold a “better living through chemistry” lifestyle. With regards to bans, the first thing I suggest is a ban on prescription drug advertising to the general public. All prescription drugs should be advertised in medical journals. My father has practiced medicine for 50 years and he says that when the ads say “ask you doctor”, that’s really code for “tell your doctor to put you on the stuff”.
As in many decisions people make, just follow the money trail.

Tripp- you may be an exception… Way too many people here appear to be trying to maximize hits on their blogs for their own benefit. My anonymous ass notwithstanding, I see no value to me or you from the promotion of the egos or bank accounts of would-be pundits. Schwadchuck is gone ( I did enjoy her linked photos of dour, graying fellow travelers choking down their fart fuel), may KK soon follow. You too, Aimlow Joe.
Some folks post here in the flow of the conversation, and their contributions are what bring me back. (I have been here, in one incarnation or another, a lot longer than most posters.) Others seem poised to insert, very early in the day, links to their blogs. I followed KK’s link, and found nothing of value there. What the fuck time do you have to get up in Siberia to be one of the first five posters here?
My anonymous ass is not served by this practice.
I do not object to people posting links to their blogs, or to material germane to the discussion. I do get irritated when I find the same people in the first few comments posting “Attaboy Jim, y’all go here!” week after fucking week.
You, Tripp, as a specific example, participate in the give and take, and post your link to those who might like to follow up. No problemo. I almost contacted you recently. I was in Columbus, Ga, visiting family, some of whom garden seriously, but they were all so busy getting ready to rapture that I figured what the hell, we’ll eat beet greens in heaven.
Thank you for your contributions, and screw you for your condescending tone. Call it a wash.

Glad to have you back Qshtik! Wishing your daughter a blissful married life.
You are right about “Jared”…I know he was the shooter in AZ, but I can’t remember his last name.
As for Armstrong, Bonds, etc. I don’t give a damn what they do to their bodies.
Kind regards, Jen

Yeah and she’s the princess type, as heavily promoted by Mrs. Ragtop. I thought maybe a dose of reality would get more synapses firing. She did appear to grasp the concepts, but it was apparent that I had spoiled her picnic.
There are plenty of adults who are paying attention and I know quite a few. Far too many more are oblivious, in denial or too heavily vested in the status quo to want to change. There is hope, though. Even as skeptical as I am, I saw the light a few years ago. It took a lot of research, for me to be convinced. Some folks need the mental equivilent of a 2×4, to the head, to wake up.

Pretty good list of libs, alright. Dumbass.
Talk about dumbass. Not a single person on your list claims to be a journalist. Jim was talking about the the failure of journalism. What the fuck are you talking about fucktard?

According to a Naturopath friend a Pharma is trying to have ALL Water in US taps laced with an Anti Depressant [depressing,eh]….they added fluoride
[gee thanks Rockefellers and Alcoa Aluminum]..
and this is a repost…………….
Tuesday’s Daily Bulletin paper, ran two articles on the front page side by side :
1- Calif ‘s 20 Billion Dollar Budget Deficit
2- The Calif Supreme Court ruling that ILLEGALS can attend college and get benefits.
Why don’t they just deport them when they arrive to register?
3- Last year they ran an article on the yearly costs to Calif Taxpayers from Illegals using Hospital Emergency Rooms for their general health care –
At just one hospital the cost to tax payers totaled over 25 million a year
Someone please tell me what the HELL’s wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!
We’re “broke” & can’t help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.,???????????
In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti Chile , and Turkey . And now Pakistan …..home of bin Laden.
Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!
Our retired seniors living on a ‘fixed income’ receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$’s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when its time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place?
We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.
AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without ‘needed’ meds, and mentally ill without treatment -etc,etc.
YET…………………
They have a ‘Benefit’ for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and planes lining up with food, water, tents clothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies.
Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave ‘US’ the same support they give to other countries!!!!!!!!!!!

Another reason to flee California:
“WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that “needless suffering and death” had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.”

The Cult should have done with the Jehovah’s Witness’s did – declare that the world ended SECRETLY.
Now that Obama has become Irish, he has truly become a Kennedy Democrat – America’s first Black Kennedy.

Good post from JHK regarding the annoying and trivial reporting from the news media. Why is the media giving any attention to Birthers/Truthers/Deathers/End of Timers — are we so bored we need entertainment from freaks? And what about all those poor suckers who gave away their worldly belongings and ALL THEIR MONEY to Harold Camping who promised them rapture. Will the media investigate Camping and see what he did with all that money? That would be an interesting investigation.
But there seems to be hints of good news coming in — New Jersey is experiencing the growth of urban farming. Vacant and/or abandoned lots are sprouting up with poly tunnels and fresh veggies. Chicago is planning for a warmer climate in the future replacing street trees with swamp oaks that can withstand the heat and humidity as their climate appears to be growing warmer and warmer. Even the US Navy is investigating how to adapt to Climate Change. And although we are running out of fossil fuel and surplus is piling up temporarily at refineries and tankards everywhere, people are conserving their use of fuel and looking towards mass transportation. Trains and mopeds may be become the transportation of choice. Trains for long trips; mopeds for short ones.
So we learn and we adapt. And we’re smart enough not to believe the religious nuts or FOX News and use the many resources available to plan ahead so that no matter what, we’ll be ready. So while athletes and celebrities may entertain the masses, at least some of us are looking ahead.

Great post Jim. For those interested in a perfect expose’ of the current looting and destruction of the middle class by the oligarchy scroll down to Paul Craig Roberts’ amazing interview on Denninger’s Web site: (Roberts was Editor of the Wall Street Journal and Undersecretary of U.S. Treasury:market-ticker.org/
Thanks, Ed

Reason to flee NY:
“A New York assemblyman says he wants the state to require hotels to provide their housekeepers with an emergency “panic button” that would help protect them from sexual assaults on the job.”
Vive Le France!

“May 23 (Bloomberg) — Seven publicly traded U.S. corporations represented on President Barack Obama’s advisory council for jobs and competitiveness — including General Electric Co. and Intel Corp. — have devoted a growing pool of their non-U.S. earnings to investments in other countries.
As a group, multinational companies with current or former chief executive officers on Obama’s jobs council have, over the past four years, almost doubled the cumulative amounts they’ve reinvested overseas, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
By doing so, companies may be able to take advantage of faster-growing markets or lower production costs, and they can defer U.S. income taxes on profits from overseas sales. ”
Isn’t that special!

Cronkite was a tool too – he was just more dignified as befitted a tool back when America wasn’t as far gone. Did He or Lippman or Murrow ever take on the Federal Reserve? Nope – that was just nut stuff back then.
As Confucius said, the Superior Man is not an instrument.

Surprised to see people disparaging JHK for watching 60 Minutes. As a commentator on current events he probably watches a great deal of news shows, not because he’s a fan, but because he needs to know what lies the mainstream media is spewing this week.
Remember that old line “Hold your friends close and your enemies closer”. It applies for JHK too. Only a fool ignores information they don’t like.

“Thank you for your contributions, and screw you for your condescending tone. Call it a wash.”
You got it, mate. Thanks for the thoughts, and come on by whenever you get the chance. We made it through this false rapture alarm, but might not next time, so don’t wait forever;)!

You can’t blame the Palestinians for wanting to come back and take back their homes. The Israelis threw them out and changed the names of the Villages to Jewish names. The Palestinians will never forgive or forget.
The Answer? There is none. The “Answer” was not to have created Israel in Palestine to begin with.

Yes anti – we’re stark raving mad. The Terrorist have won. The Goverment now treats its own citizens like terrorists. We should ethnically profile like the Israelis do. Unpleasant? Yes, but better than treating all Americans like this.

I was reading your post quite happily, in agreement right up til you claimed that teaching multi culturalism is b.s. You are so wrong about that.
Unless we all understand other human cultures and day to day lives, we have no basis to grasp that this is all one world and there is only one human race. We are not so different, no matter what part of the world we occupy. Whether we worship this god or that, or none at all, whether we eat red meat or not, live in an industrialised society or an agricultural one, if you scratch the surface we are all the same.
All of us love our parents and our children and desperately hope for security in our futures. We value our friends and our way of life. We have much more in common than we have differences, and therefore we have a strong basis to begin discussions about sharing the world’s resources.
When we fail to teach our kids tolerance and understanding of other cultures, they don’t have the opportunity to learn how much we humans have in common, and that each of us is worth the same as every other living person.
To this Canadian one of the biggest problems Americans face is that attitude that the USA is the best in the world at everything and Americans better, smarter than anybody else. Now that’s bull shit!

I wonder if these thieving banksters,crooked politicians lying SOBs in the NEWs?Media are aware that they are on the path to suicide?Sooner or later someone with the right? attitude will realize what these scumbags are up to and put an end to one of them.This might start something some have been wishing for,for a long time.If a US president can be murdered in broad daylight,with the responsible mobsters still running loose unpunished,I would not dismiss the possibility of this happening.

Okay Jim, I know that you are allergic to conspiracy’s so let me give you a 6th option for the “failure” of American “journalists”….
That our “media” are held by less than a half dozen corporations (many of whom are also in the “defense” business) and they are sending out a very carefully crafted message, and that message results in a very passive and maliable population who will never riot over the price of food, but will riot when their “local pro football” team “wins” a game or when told to by their masters to support the maters agenda of war for profit and population control…… seems the USA’s CIA is keenly aware of peak oil and is carefully chiseling out an “Arab Spring” that will position Halliburton/KBR into the profit power stratosphere…
Your Allergy causes you to see the world as spinning out of control and not making any sense just because people are stupid…. illogical, and not adjusted to reality, and at Google’s boardroom that may be the case, but I assure that it is not the case at Brown Brothers Harriman, or any of their offspring.
If the Bushes are so “unaware” of peak oil then why did they happen to invade the wrong country in the wake of 9/11 in the form of Iraq? Seriously, if they were just stupid and wanting to make a war that Americans could wrap their heads around (Freedom VS Commies) they could have gone after Lil’ Kim and the DPRK… they did not.
Nor did they really go after “al Queda”… they went in and got busy securing energy contracts… not securing the country… it was job one!
Your leaders are not unaware of the oil situation, they have the situation well in hand, and when the sense that the tattooed masses are going to invade the Hamptons they will give the masses guns and cause “gang wars” the way they have in El Salvador, and the tattooed masses will not invade East Hampton, but rather Easton.
No things don’t make sense… but they do the second you realise that there is a lot more than golfing, cigar smoking, and brandy drinking going on at the worlds country clubs and think tanks…. there is war for profit being designed for the world to consume, and they are serving it up daily… and keeping you in the dark as to why.

The Flight of Whites from California is one of the biggest movement of people in US history, dwarfing the “Okies” fleeing the dustbowl into California. Bad schools, taxes, crime – all the reasons giving for flight are just symptoms of the Brown Invasion. We are surrendering our Sovereignty.

There are always exceptions in the mainstream media though, just look at Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone. The 2012 election is going to be interesting; imagine Obama vs Ron Paul. Paul might not have a chance, but he would certainly take the debate to a whole new level.

JHK leans on the “Passenger Railroad” theme in his books and blog, never much about freight railway network.
Noting wardoc’s complaints about rail transit equals groping, the ‘ol doc forgets why teenage boys favor early departure from school in favor of supporting their own private vehicle… And where has worldwide chase for private vehicle at puberty got us? We had our share of the oil too, poured into dozens of cars from letter series Chryslers to some fun with ancient 12 & 16 cylinder Cadillacs and a creaky 1931 Marmon, roomy 7 passenger behemoths. Happy motoring!
Boone Pickens tries to sell us on a fleet of LNG trucks, touted as a “bridge” through the Oil Interregnum. Too bad Boone doesn’t use some of his time promoting rebuild of the 100’s of US dormant rail branch lines, a more strategic and robust approach to separate America from Muslim oil. Boone, talk to Christopher C. Swan.
For the 1000’s of readers never posting, you must be thinking about Peak Oil or you wouldn’t be here; look up your own copy of the “Official Guide” of the railways circa 1920-1050, and be familiar with your locale’s railway territory. Look up your town or city in the back index, and note railway line(s) in service a half century back. When America was a lending not a borrowing nation.
Other Oil Interregnum railway information from “tahoevalleylines” postings at TOD, and also see Newsletter 42, article 374; and Newsletter 89, article 1037. For comprehensive Rail Map Atlas volumes see spv.co.uk for your state listing.
Planners in the 3000+ County offices, sooner or later Peak Oil lands in your town; why not be ready? County level officials can pre-empt transport emergency by beginning dialogue with the State Army/National Guard, regarding recommissioned rail logistics units: “Railroad Operating Battalions”. The skeleton ROB unit at Ft. Eustis, VA (former home of the 727th Railway Operating Battalion) has recently moved to Ft. Lee.
Recommissioned ROB will expedite rehab of dormant rail branch lines, with particular emphasis on agricultural traffic branches. California examples of Ag lines would be the Placerville, Rumsey, Calaveras, Madera and Isleton lines. Some preliminary investigation by planners with initiative will smooth the panic when Federal Executive Emergency Orders for motor fuel allocation come when we can’t borrow enough to finance oil imports.
We simply need to rebuild the branch rail footprint to maintain Societal And Commercial Cohesion when grocery aviation and trucking falters. It is crucial to have calm people in the room, responsible officials and business owners already savvy on rail component past & present in their respective locales. Interim, we establish container load/unload facilities enroute rail mains, giving rail access to towns and suburbs formerly having rail freight platforms.
Keep ‘Em Rolling

The Palestinians will never forgive or forget.
==
LOL! The “Palestinians” is an MI6/KGB/CIA fiction. And if it wasn’t for the constant British/Russian/US propaganda, financial and political support, these “Palestinians” would go back to being your regular garden-variety pan-arab jihadis, whether of the irrelevant “Egyptian” or irrelevant “Syrian” label.
Btw, if anybody thinks that MI6/KGB/CIA are enemy organizations, you better think again. They all work for the same banking elite, using the same dialectic. That is, putting on their kabuki shows of “good” and “bad” guys to sell you weapons and wars while they vaccum every penny that you earn working like a donkey on their plantation.

Well, get over it. I stand by my comment. Far too much public education time is spent on this and other ‘social engineering’ while our students fall farther behind the rest of the industrialized nations in important subjects like math and science. Multiculturalism is not tolerance. And yes we have racism, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD including Canada. I still think Americans are already among the MOST tolerant people on the planet.
If they want to make this subject a 9 week elective, fine. Unfortunately (for U.S.) it has become a day in and day out barrage that borders on brainwashing. This I know from personal experience and am addressing same, with my BOE. Interestingly enough, I have quiet support of MANY teachers who believe the same but fear reprisals from thier union, if they were to speak out.
I am not a spokesperson (note androgynous) for American Exceptionalism. I do believe that Americans have done great things BECAUSE they lived in America rather than, say, the USSR or Sweden or any other socialist country.
The U.S.A. IS the best place IN THE WORLD to live because anyone, with intellegence and a good work ethic, can make a pretty good life here.

Some of Harlold Camping’s followers maxed out their credit cards thinking the Rapture a way to cheat not only death but debt. The two are related as the word mortgage implies. In any case, Jesus is the answer to irresponsible spending – he let’s us get away with it apparently. How different than the austere doctrine the Druids believed where death was no excuse for non payment of debt.

More of the old lies – “A Land without a People for a People without a Land.” Palestine was heavily populated by Arabs and was a food exporter. It’ true they were downtrodden peasants of the Ottomans but that doesn’t mean the Jews had the right to disposess them.

Actually Shecky it is between 8 and 9 in the evening here in Siberia when Jim posts, just after I put my 2 year old son to sleep for the night. And Jim actually has said he enjoys my blog, so I continue to post here early in order that he can easily check it out if he wants. But, I have the feeling you really don’t give a shit what I say, so I’ll just wish you good luck and good night.

Ragtop, androgynous or not, you’re still wrong. If you’re so tolerant, why do you hate the teaching of other cultures so much? As for teachers agreeing with you, so what? Teachers can be brainwashed just like anybody else, and as a group they’re an unusually conformist bunch, so it doesn’t surprise me that some of them believe what the America First crowd tells them.
Speaking of the Greatest Country In The Entire World, did you realize you started a sentence saying you aren’t part of that crowd, then end it telling us why that’s true?
In closing, let me share the results of a search for best countries in the world. Lots of results from different orgs, but I chose Newsweek, an American publication, to quote here in placing the USA at Number 11. Top five were Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia and Canada. Just google that topic, you can probably find an org. that places you first.

Don’t confuse your ignorance with my knowledge and understanding of history and the region. I know this region and its history inside out. I’m also very aware of the outside interests that use the people of this region for their various looting schemes.
This “conflict” was planned many decades ago and is deliberately maintained by the banksters to keep their population of hamster-brains running on their treadmills. Keep the hamster-brains going deeper and deeper into debt and get them to give up more and more of themselves to maintain the bloated expense of their military and their fake wars.

Pod #157:
JHK: I think that every effort should be made to defeat these fuckers and keep’m out of your town. I’d even propose that a little bit of irrational emotion be brought into the picture.
JHK: I don’t think we’re really capable of disciplining these companies in the way they really need to be disciplined….
JHK: There’s too much bullshit in our culture right now about corporate freedom and corporations are persons and entrepreneurial zest. The thing is these companies are probably not going to exist in this form very far into the future. Everything about their supply lines and their business model is set up for failure fairly shortly as we run into resource problems.
DC: You don’t see this as a transitional form where McDonald’s could eventually be trained to build [responsibly]?
JHK: No…. They’re predatory organisms, these corporations, these fast food joints, that can only operate within a certain kind of nutrient system, and that nutrient system is going away, and they are going to go extinct…. We’ll get rid of these things, and they’ll die. Fuck’m.
Free at last! Free at last! Praise God I think he’s got it!

Using Lance Armstrong on 60 Minutes as the starting point for this week’s commentary reminded me that 60 Minutes did a glowing puff piece on Lenny Dykstra (ex-baseballer turned trader maven), but they never did a follow up on Dykstra when he was indicted on fraud and obstruction of justice and multiple lawsuits for not paying his bills. That would be real news, albeit on a small timer, about how distorted the financial markets are and might cause an outlier percentage of their audience to start really thinking about our situation. And, of course, how wrong / duped they were in there first story. Might get people to start thinking: “If they are wrong and/or can be fool by this hustler, how reliable is ’60 Minutes’ and the old media.”
Mr. Kuntsler did an excellent recap of his thesis this week for those who are just becoming aware of the emerging crisis and following his blog.

More of the old lies
==
The only lying that’s done here is by you, Vlad. Lying propaganda is what you do. Without lying, your Vatican world domination agenda withers and dies. Your whole world construct is one big disgusting scam. From your imperialist roman religion, to your fascist economics, to your nazi politics, to your aggrieved genocidal imperialist white supremacist slave master spiel.

Remember back in ’05 how bad President Bush got hammered ‘for not doing enough for the Big Easy, ‘specially its esteemed black citizens, after Katrina? Well last night Joplin, MO was wiped out by killer tornados, killing hundreds. Where’s our current President? It seems on yet another overseas junket, sucking down Guinness in Ireland, “searching for his roots”, living large with Michelle, MESSIAH come to save the world!
Joplin, MO? Who gives a shit about the White Trash who live there?
-Marlin

“I know this region and its history inside out.”
No. You Don’t. You think you do. You have convinced yourself that you are smarter than everyone else and therefore you need to post here and teach everybody the “truth.” But you are just a kook.

Actually I have no more loyalty to Kulturkritic than I have to you. I just didn’t recognize your handle (possibly because of that “several incarnations” thing), and you posted your curse right after I had posted the link to Dmitry’s blog (who definitely has a useful thing or two to say about TLE), so I popped back at what I felt was a personal attack! I’m vain that way. Anyway, if I knew you better I would have treated you more like a peer and less like a pariah:)
At least I’m not ignoring you like I am the poster who thinks growing food in a system completely segregated from Nature’s free environmental services and unbelievably valuable ecological support (in the soil where food evolved) is somehow an actual boon to our future!
(Instead of condescension, that was an example of passive aggressive smarminess;) My mother-in-law would be proud. What’s next?

No I don’t think Ron Paul will be allowed as the repub candidate. He has a nasty habit of telling some truth, not all but some. The guy has some good policy ideas, but seems entrenched in the idea that individuals in society should go it alone. That is simply not the historical norm for human societies. Tribes existed for the benefit of all the members of that tribe, people cooperated and contributed for the survival of the whole tribe. Being ostracized or kicked out of the tribe was often a death sentence, cause loners just couldn’t survive. His ideas about abolishing the Fed, shutting down all overseas bases, disbanding most of the military, are pretty good.
But at this point I don’t think any leader can effectively navigate the nation through the contraction now occurring in the economy. Besides who says there will be a 2012 election, maybe we will see it deferred because of a jinned up security crisis.
Oh well, Memorial Day weekend coming up, get out the grills, beer and hot dogs folks, cause everything is just fine!
Qshtick, yup attention spans are gnat sized, despite all the Pharma crap available to “correct” that little problem. I think most people are experiencing information overload. This makes it difficult to discern what we should be paying attention too. Think this overload is intentional? I would bet big bucks it is.
Jared Loughner is a prime example of the crazed populous in the US. Look at his pics, very scary looking. The face of a lost soul for sure.

I don’t think the general public has been so sheep like in the nation’s history. So many have lost so much in the past three years and yet the media reflects mostly the trivialities of human accomplishments and human failings.
We are at an economic cross roads in which all of Mr. Obama’s words about “hope and change” and his “yes we can!” attitude are what is needed, but he is revealing himself to be just a marketing gimmick for the powers that be.
Let’s start with the massive fraud that has been visited upon the public, in America and the world, by a cabal of the economic elite. Mr. Obama has compromised himself by bringing people like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner into the Washington halls of power. Are they there as Mr. Obama’s first choice, or has been ordered to bring them in, to act as check on administration? The attorney-general as Jim has remarked before is all too silent, I guess its hard to consider charges against the very people you rub shoulders with daily. And, Eric Holder is playing it safe, no Bobby Kennedy is he, wiling to take personal risks to go after the banksters. Sad, because these folks have caused much more harm to the public than the mafia did back in the sixties. They don’t carry guns, but they have no doubt triggered their share of suicides and economic caused lots of family breakups.
Then, the economic imperatives. There is so much sustainable infrastructure needed to move ahead, particularly public transport and the rail network to get things set up for the log term peak oil situation. The automobile will not carry America forward in the age of $200 a barrel oil. There is no shortage of economic value out there to keep an army of people employed.
Similar with education, its not constrained by physical shortages but self imposed economic ones. Mr. Obama spoke in Ireland today, praising the way Ireland steamed ahead by making education a national imperative and opening the doors of higher education to all. Meanwhile in Detroit, the school district is imposing third world education standards, such as class sizes of 60, due to the shrunken tax base. To think that this can happen in a wealthy nation like the United States, while a small island country can arrange its affairs to accomplish much better? What a travesty, a blot to America’s otherwise impressive record over many generations. Does America punish its children for the errors of the elders? I guess so, if that is what it takes so Wall Street tycoons can still afford the yachts in Fort Lauderdale and Newport.
Meanwhile the right wing media blab on about how higher taxes for the rich will mean less opportunity for the workers and the young, pushing the trickle down remedies, completely oblivious to history. The fact is that when the last time America’s debt was in this ratio of the GDP, post World War II, the heavy burden of taxes was placed on the rich to bring it down, and they survived it, even thrived through it, and jobs were not diminished. The post war years saw a much higher level of public spending for education. In essence, veterans were given the access to higher education that Ireland now extends to all citizens. Workers income actually rose in real terms due to both stimulus measures put in place to avoid the normal post-war recessions, and the popularity of collective bargaining. (Yes, hard to believe back then, the media supported unions, today they are seen as some kind of anachronisms at best and social evil at worst.)
And, despite the high taxes, life was not so bad for the elite either. Wall Street traders still came into work each day. General Motors had no trouble finding smart people wanting to become the CEO. Hollywood still made movies. Big money was still being made. Though they measured it in millions, not billions back then.

Nice week’s work, JHK, and thanks to you, as always.
The comments seem to be unusually good, so far, as well. I’ll take issue with those who complain about the “first” posters and those who post to justify advertising their own blogs. I don’t see the problem. “First!” away to your hearts content.
And some of the blog advert’s are quite helpful. And what’s the problem with them – some shortage of cyberspace electrons bothering you complainers????
Freak on a leash! I’ve got plenty of question marks, don’t I?? ?
?
============
Anyway, to cases this week – JHK has needled us in our generational divide, as the followers of 60 Minutes are attacked by those who don’t even know exactly what 60 Minutes are/is supposed to represent to the “hearth” of American Life.
And exactly why Lance Armstrong is *news?* hits at the generational divide. JHK comes sort of close to an explanation with this:
“3. Mainstream media only reflects the cognitive dissonance that pervades the collective imagination of a culture – too much noise to think coherently.”
-JHK-
True enough, but the problem goes deeper, or goes off into the generational divide.
The cohort being chased by advertisers is generally young, with malleable brand loyalty. They like happy news. They have “Live Strong” bracelets. livestrong.org/They have no knowledge of “banking,” or why “Goldman Sacks?” should be investigated. They do not care, either.
They also like short news, and entertaining news – which integrates seamlessly into American Idol.
Free Market Capitalism needs no conspiracy to explain itself – even if one does exist, somewhere.

Jeez, I dunno Jim, doncha think that the concentration of MS media in a small number of hands–the same hands that hold the reins of big corps like GE–might have something to do with the tales they tell?
Take a look back at Watergate. It took the Washington Post a couple of years to get people steamed (or at least interested) in the “cheap second–rate burglary” and Nixon’s role in it. And it took awhile for the rest of the media to tag along. Why’d the Post do it? ‘Cause they didn’t have a dog in that fight. (Well maybe they did but that’s another story.)
Put it this way, the oxen are owned by a small select group. You just can’t expect them to go around goring them.

There’s nothing I’m saying that can’t be verified from third parties elsewhere. There must be a lot of us “kooks” out there, because we’re all seeing the same thing.
Anyway, more and more people are starting see how they’re being managed and manipulated. Even the Arabs and the Israelis with all their emotional blindness are starting to wake up and see through this bullshit.

I haven’t posted here in months because Jim’s bigotry toward the american south is not only rude, but poorly informed and every bit as sloppy and weak as mainstream media. Today, however, we are back to basics, which is where he excels: distilling down our dire straits into useable talking points. Everyone who reads here needs to try and bring another person up to speed. It is pointless to deride people as lazy and uneducated putzes; a more charitable attitude will serve us all far better. I use my saturdays at the farmers market in this very way; sure Im selling eggs and produce and folk art…and also PO and sustainability and the signs of approaching tyranny. Go forth and evangelize!
Whas up, Tripp?!

“The global energy predicament really is a crisis”
Ummm…. no on this one as well. It’s not, Jim.
You have about as good a record calling this stuff as those kooks predicting the Rapture on Saturday.
This price spike happened in 2005 after the hurricanes and again in the summer of 2008. This time the price has started dropping (at least for now) about $10 for oil and 10 cents for gasoline in the last few weeks – without gasoline passing the $4.11 mark set in 2008.
But every time it happens, you start hysterically screaming that the Zombie Apocalypse is right around the corner. Do you ever go back and look at your own writing?
It’s YOU that needs to GET REAL, Man!
Peak Oil is very real and is a serious issue. But your hysterics, bad math, bad sources, and, in fact, HORRIBLE understanding of the underlying economics of the issue and the industry/geologic aspects are all part of the problem.
Stop making predictions. If 60 Minutes sucks, stop watching it.
You may not have noticed this, but Tour de France cycling has no significant fan-base in the United States, the bikes are super-eco-friendly/green/whatever, and what fans there are are probably closer to your snobbish intellectual ideals.
This is not NASCAR. What is your problem? Are you just suffering from cranky-old-man disease?
Is there nothing is our culture that you don’t hate. Why don’t you just get it over with and move to the 14th century already? Geez, Louise.

Hey marlin, I believe Obama is stuck in Ireland trying to get home, but his super-duty limo is hung-up on a driveway berm and they need three axle hook to pull it free. Meanwhile he is killin’ time on twitter, whatever the f that is. Enjoy tht Mosin for me. Russian made and refurbed in Finland? Didn’t they have a war leading up to WWII. I think the Fins kicked the reds asses if I remember correctly.

Is there nothing is our culture that you don’t hate.
==
Probably not. And rightfully so.
And he doesn’t need to get over it and he doesn’t need to move elsewhere. He is perfectly within his rights as a citizen to voice his displeasure, organize, and do whatever he can to affect change. If you don’t like it, too bad.

We could recognize that peak oil means that we have to grow our food differently….
Yes, we have to re-localize ag. Message received. However, I don’t hear anyone talking about re-localizing every form of business. Is that because doing so goes against the entire history of business since who knows when.
Everything that our fine theorists of capital–and our footloose libertarians–have theorized has pushed business further and further away from local communities.
Swift & Co. killed off New York butchers with Chicago beef. Woolworth’s and Sears killed off local five and dimes and department stores. K-mart killed Sears. Wal-mart killed K-mart. Japan killed Detroit. China killed Japan.
All our habits of thought and practice, all our theories and great business models are going to prevent us from being able work more than a hour or two ahead of the leading edge of the tsunami.

Hey Tripp, I was sure the predicted “Rapture” had started on Saturday, The clouds parted and a immense bright orb appeared in the sky! The light was dazzling! So much so that no mortal could gaze upon it! It was blinding yet beautiful! Alas I was again disappointed. It was only Ra, the sun god. The clouds closed up and swallowed him within minutes. Better luck next time! The Rain gods have blessed us again today. I am sick of being blessed!

“I know that this will not discourage you or others that engage is a silly competition that is totally meaningless, superficial and a race to the bottom of the gene pool for this behavior.”
Competition is king!!!

Yo, Tripp: I was worrying about you and yours. (Worrying: it’s genetic. Got it from Mom 🙂 ) Do you have a storm cellar? Might be time to put one in. Could double as a root cellar. The pictures and video from Joplin are unreal.
One of my favorite paintings by John Stewart Curry.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1227&bih=1016&q=john+steuart…
If that link doesn’t work, this one might…muskegonartmuseum.org/collections-gallery/gallery
American Regionalists are some of my favorite painters. John Stewart Curry, Grant Wood and (“Oakie Baroque”) Thomas Hart Benton. So ends our small lesson in cultural literacy for today.

GrouchyOldGirl –
I’ve got to disagree with you about the benefits of multiculturalism. If there are there, they are outweighed by the negative impacts.
“This infantile belief that we can somehow save the world (or at least our own souls) by allowing the whole world to move here, this inflated idealism that sees America, much as the French
revolutionists saw France, as the “Christ of Nations,” is bound up with a classic flaw in human nature: the unwillingness to accept
rational limits.”
-Lawrence Auster, the path to national suicide-
“Man never rushes forward so confidently, it would sometimes seem, as when he is on the very brink of the abyss.”
-irving babbit-jtl.org/auster/PNS.pdf
Auster, author of TPTNS is Jewish, btw.
I suspect some of you would dismiss him out of hand, otherwise.
Of course, his ethnicity may cause others to dismiss him out of hand, instead.
Go figure?

Ah yes. If we all just watched Faux News and got rid of Obama and replaced him with Sarah Bachmann we’d be back on track for the rapture in no time… and we’d have all the Wall Street crooks in jail to boot and we’d have free gasoline too.

That last comment was for Tripp. Did a “previous screen” and lost the “Replying to…”
How I feel about links … I check them out. If they seem valuable, I add them to my favorites. I have gone wonderful places and learned wonderful things, following those links.
Oh, I know. We all have pet peeves.

Oh Shecky relax, no one makes any money from blogging and if people post links to theirs on this one then what is the harm? It’s called sharing and a virtual community.
Don’t be a hater… it’s all good.
Aimlow Joe was here.

a whole flock of black swans is idling on the White House lawn.
===========
Bad,
There’s idling and there’s sidling. Both work but I think sidling creates the better image. Perhaps your ring finger didn’t press the s hard enough?
P.S. I’m trying to piss off as many people as I can today … maybe even set a new record.

A lesser known, but just as diabolical Wall Street scandal involving large sums of money is the auction rate securities scandal.
Do a google search or go to beruthless.net.
Truly, the greed of that breed knows no bounds.

How bout the use of nouns as verbs: for example – He gifted me or It’s tornadoing outside?
================
Or how ’bout when the elite inform you they’ll be wintering in St Thomas. I reply, “oh how nice, I’ll be wintering in New Joisy.”

Geez, I thought you were going to get me!
Sorry about the rain.
Central Park, what a place, surrounded by magnificent treasures!
I was just looking at pictures of the monument to King Jagiello, one of my favorites.

Asia, I don’t know exactly what it was that I wrote that you were responding to, but like Sam Kineson said to Rodney Dangerfield in his history class in the comedy “Back to School” I like the way you think. In other words, you do not suffer from positive thinking. The California you describe is exceedingly unattractive to this superannuated Cleveland boy. The last time I visited L.A. to see my auntie and cousins the mean cousins told me “you’re a foreigner”, and “nobody out here can afford American cars”, and “by shipping out with the merchant marine you’ll only end up in a war”. They were at least right about #3 as this was 1989 and I’d just gotten my Military Sealift physical at the U.S. Public Health Service where they spent an entire day sticking me with needles in preparation for some third world freighter travel.
My cousins also told me not to wear my Cleveland Indians hat as gangbangers would get confused and everyone would try to shoot me since the hat contained both blue and red.
Our problem in this country is always politics. In other words, the only reason that we can’t solve our problems is because it is politically impossible to do so. And then culturally we have formed, to use a favorite word of the posters on this blog, a FUCKTARDIC consensus in favor of a sort of false gentility in which each fresh outrage is greeted with the bland affect of the imperturbably medicated, as in psych. meds.. Those who insist upon pointing out what is happening are dismissed as ranting negativistic cranks who forgot to take their meds..
As Jim points out repeatedly we fantasize about rafting out the energy credit card over to coal powered electric cars from liquid petroleum to keep the game of musical chairs going awhile longer before the music stops. It would be too politically unpalatable to make real structural changes in our transporation system or the disposition of our communities. I think that this rafting out of the energy credit card to alternatives will work for awhile, until it doesn’t. In the meantime the hospitals and schools in California will just have to remain dysfunctionally generous to the undeserving.

Wow, Vlad –
Rav Abraham Kook as the origin of the word “kook” or “kooky?” Who knew?
I’d like to see a citation on that, if you please.
Meanwhile, here’s a Kooky Saying?:
“whoever is faithful to his self – he is a freeman, and whoever fills his life only with what is good and beautiful in the eyes of others – he is a slave.”
-Rabbi Abraham Kook-
Good stuff, I’ve got to admit!
PoC
aka the Master of Shift 😉

I know Glen Beck is an anathema here, but right now I’m watching his show, and he sounds a lot like JHK, ‘specially on the ‘Arab Spring’, energy depletion, and the collapse of the Euro.
Is Beck welcome here, in CFNation? Probably not, but its interesting that about 60% of the time they say the same thing, and arrive at the same conclusions.
-Marlin

Spot on.
I would add the troubles in the middle eastern oil-producing countries stem from the people wanting the power of that oil for themselves. They imagine a peaceful setting with a car in every driveway, kids in free schooling, and enough cash to chomp down medium-rare charcoal-seared steaks and slop beer like Homer Simpson every single clear star night.
The soccer moms of the USA have united and sent their boys to put down the uprising. Mom says, “Eat sand you punks”, in the same breath, “that oil is ours”.

Case in point … I never would have found AimLow, except through here. I check in on his blog, frequently. A different slant on the world, an occasional giggle and episodes of Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Ass Off, have been known to occur.

Not too bad, MMMMMMM –
“the people wanting the power of that oil for themselves. They imagine a peaceful setting with a car in every driveway, kids in free schooling, and enough cash to chomp down medium-rare charcoal-seared steaks and slop beer”
-7m-
Just add to that that the RW corporatists and the LW utopians think that we can have a US population of 400,000,000 PLUS – all doing the exact same thing.
-mika as a creation of Vlad- neckflames
Possible, neckflames – possible.
-glen beck as 60% welcome on CFN- marlin
Possible, Marlin54, possible – now, if you would please extract out the Glen Beckisms that will make sense in the context of collapse and peak oil –
I know there are some good Beckisms – it’s hard to find them in the Bombast, sometimes.

Let it go, Grouch. I do not hate learning OR teaching about other cultures. I believe it’s a problem when it becomes the predominant theme in the school. Typical liberal to turn any comment she doen’t like, into ‘hate.’
It’s about priorities. There are far more important subjects children should learn. Public education should focus on math, science, proper grammar and teaching our young people HOW TO LEARN. Family and Life will teach them the rest.
I said I didn’t believe in ‘American Exceptionalism’ meaning that our shit doesn’t stink. A lot of Americans DO believe that. I believe that, as a country, we screw up on a fairly regular basis. I also believe that the world is a better place over the past 100yrs, because we were here. At least better than if we had not been.
“so it doesn’t surprise me that some of them believe what the America First crowd tells them.” Yes, America first. That is where I live and my family lives. I will look out for mine first. That doesn’t mean I won’t also look out for yours. You sound like one of those One World Government types who believe that government can always do it better.
Thanks for the Newsweek clip. Perfect example of why I would never buy that rag. I am very close with Americans who live abroad. Sweden, Greece, China, Bangladesh, Brazil. ALL say that the U.S. is the best place to live. Not perfect; just the best place to live.

Hurry down to your local dealer now for the super size carnival sales event BBQ and we’ll throw in a free pair of fuzzy dice. With zero per cent you just have to sign your life away on the dotted line. Just visit with one of our sales people who’ll be dressed like a clown. Sorry, no fiat currency will be accepted. Free Balloons for the kids. Peanuts for the monkey are extra. Hurry, this deal
won’t last long.

I really love this blog. Everyone is basically on the same page, with variations here and there. But I can’t help but be cynical because other blogs that I read give riviting opinions too, and it all boils down to no one really knows what is going on. Jim sees it his way, (and he may be right), God people see it a religious way, (and they might be right), Obamaites see it his way, (I am not sure they are right), conspiracy people see it there way (they are most probably right),children see it their way, and teens see it the Jersey shore way. What is the right way? Who the F### knows? The world is so vast and carries so many stories, and realities change with the beholder. I truly wouldn’t be surprised if Osama (who is now officially dead) is someday spotted at a party on Wall street or Hollywood, or somewhere in France, and someone there will turn to a friend and say, “Hey, if I didn’t know better,,,I would swear that is Osama Bin Laden.” I mean really….who knows?

Oil. The center of our world. A sour tune is being sung about how small biz is running from CA because of “Liberal”`anti business laws. Yet what do the CA companies really complain about? The cost of processed materials and energy made from fossil fuel. We are going to see a lot of this. Beat taxes and government for a few percentage points to make up the ever increasing cost of oil. Really all carbon fuel. So we get Lance from the Media. More smoke and mirrors.JHK pounds one more nail in the box that is becoming the coffin of the Western World. The people we make fun of are living in a World Made By Hand. They will be the next winners and holders of the title Superpower. Nice work JHK!!

Wardoc,,,You are SO RIGHT!! The TSA FEMA outgrowth of the Terrorist War against our own citizens, continually fools people into thinking they are making them “safe” as they pat them down like prisoners entering lockdown in a state penitentary, or terrorists that will be shot if they don’t conform. The sheeple are then herded onto their transportation mini seats where they are strapped in and ignored or laughed at by their attendants (prison guards stewardess) who then charge them for everything they can get, (stealing legally)
and then they will eventually sit on a beach in Mexico and get shot at by the Drug Cartels who NEVER take public tranportation. Ha Ha Ha, the laugh is on the american tourist who is stupid enough to believe they are SAFER now that the Government is watching over them.

While we watch Obama kill Libyans to save them, because the US cares so much about human rights, it may be time to look back at the previous Democratic President’s attack on Yugoslavia, although it started under the Republican President. Sort of how Obama has continued the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan that Bush started.
I recommend this to all, especially lbendet. Although it’s from 1999, the issues are the same as today, amazingly enough.
And we have been sold a bill of goods about Yugoslavia, which no one cares about enough to set straight. Well, some of us do.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.youtube.com/watch?v=GEzOgpMWnVs

Quite right Prog – we don’t need Chinese people to have Chinese Food. We can learn to do it ourselves if we want to eat that way. So just a few Chinese teachers will do – not tens of millions just so people can stuff their faces this way. Far out? People actually talk this way as if food is the biggest thing in life.

Although I agree with you about the need for rail transportation and such, you seem to be falling for Obama’s lies again.
I don’t think that Ireland did well because of higher education. I think they participated in a banking scam that recently imploded. They are usually listed with Portugal and Greece, as naughty countries, in which the population must pay for the excesses of their banking elites.
Kind of like us.

You are a great sport. I’m not mad at you anymore but I still seem to be throwing some heavy artillery your way.
Sometimes I take things right out of the aire – and more often than not I’m right. It’s the kind of divine intuition Alex in a Clockwork Orange talks about. But not always. The rabbi Kook thing might be wrong. That’s why I said “probably”.

hey Marlin, yea I know FOX is for dummy’s. Count me in the crowd. Sometimes I leave him on in the background when I’m making dinner. I just half listen to the way he hammers Oblama. Tonight he was all over the coming food, fuel, energy and resource shortages. I have not really heard much of that on main stream TV before.

…..And speaking about stories the media chooses to cover….
I just found out about radiation in Texas tap water. The problem stems from wells and more recently from gas extraction. Oh, the little details that get in the way of big business. Can’t we just brush them aside?
[For 29 years Texas has conspired to hide the fact that unsafe leves of radition were present in drinking water. Recently released documents reveal that the conspiracy to hide the facts goes all the way to the top. The federal agencies even knew and did nothing.
HOUSTON – “It’s a conspiracy at the TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] of the highest order… The documents have indicted the management of this commission in a massive cover-up,” Tom Smith of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said. The cover-up reportedly includes the knowledge of high-level politicians all the way up to the governor.]
I can’t find article that was most informative, but if you google radiation in Texas tap water you’ll find lots of recent articles about this.

Thanks, Wage,
I will check that out…it ties into something I want to write about when I have time. I have run into a topic discussed by both Kissinger and oddly enough Webster Tarpley, but I need to see what others are saying about this moment in time to build an interesting picture … till tomorrow.

Peak Oil is real. Agreed. But most people are living in the alternate reality bubble which is Society. My experience is most people have never heard of peak oil. Many people believe there is plenty of (cheap) oil and that the oil companies have capped many wells to keep the price up. I spoke with the head of an university Earth Sciences department and he had no clue about peak oil. None of the geology graduate students I spoke with had ever heard of peak oil. Politicians never speak about it. The financial analysts are oblivious. So… Ahem. I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a sudden epiphany on the part of the masses. They really are clueless. As are the elites. I even envisage a long steady decline into collapse without ever hearing the phrase peak oil mentioned in the media. Unbelievable how stupid we are collectively (as a society). So… Given the appalling level of ignorance I expect the worse. If we’re not even aware that we are going over a cliff, how can we possibly prevent it from happening ?

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Creation of Mortgage Fraud Strike Force to Protect Homeowners
LOS ANGELES – Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced the creation of the California Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, staffed by Department of Justice attorneys and investigators charged with protecting innocent homeowners and bringing to justice those who defraud them.
Composed of both civil and criminal enforcement teams, the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force will monitor and prosecute violations at every step of the mortgage process, from the origination of mortgage loans to the marketing of mortgage-backed securities to the investing public.
“Californians in search of the American dream all too often found a protracted personal and legal nightmare,” said Attorney General Harris. “Families are losing their homes, while those who perpetrated crimes and frauds against them walk free.”
At her announcement of the new mortgage fraud unit, Attorney General Harris was joined by Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, representatives from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Center for Responsible Lending, as well as homeowners harmed by unlawful lending, servicing and foreclosure practices.
“We will work to safeguard the homeowner at every step of the process – from origination of a loan to its securitization, and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who take advantage of trusting California families,” said Attorney General Harris. “We are setting a high bar for other states and we insist that homeowners be protected, respected, and informed.”
The Mortgage Fraud Strike Force will operate out of Department of Justice offices in Los Angeles, Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento. Twenty-five attorneys and investigators will work together in three teams:
– The consumer enforcement team will target scams in the consumer arena, including predatory lending, unfair business practices in originating loans, deceptive marketing, and loan modification and foreclosure consultant scams.
– The criminal enforcement team will prosecute criminal frauds associated with the epidemic of mortgage scams, including fraudulent investment and money laundering schemes related to mortgage lending or foreclosure relief.
– The corporate fraud team will target misconduct involving investments and securities tied to subprime mortgages, as well as false or fraudulent claims made to the state with respect to these securities.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa offered his support of the new strike force. “With nearly 10,000 foreclosures in the City of Los Angeles last year,” he said, “this strike force is certain to help countless residents and families from becoming victimized.”
“The Attorney General’s authority and attention to this issue brings a critical law enforcement component to the table that will help stop the practice of predatory lending once and for all,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “I applaud Attorney General Harris for her dedication to employing swift justice to the scam artists who prey on the residents of some of our most economically vulnerable neighborhoods.”
California has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, and by predators who seek to profit from the millions of Californians who are underwater in their mortgages, in foreclosure, or at risk of entering foreclosure.
Last year alone, there were foreclosure filings against 546,669 California homes. It is projected that between 2009 and 2012, a total of 2 million California homes will enter the foreclosure process. In the last year, the California Department of Justice has received thousands of complaints related to foreclosure scams, mortgage fraud, and mortgage servicing practices.
“The fingerprints of illegal activity are all over the foreclosure crisis,” said Paul Leonard, director of the California Office, Center for Responsible Lending. “The Attorney General’s effort marries the need to punish bad actors for the practices that brought our economy to the brink with the need to eliminate the scam artists who have since attempted to profit from it. Given the economic damage wreaked by foreclosures in California, this initiative is very welcome news.”
Attorney General Harris has long been dedicated to prosecuting mortgage fraud. In 2009, as District Attorney of San Francisco, she launched the first stand-alone district attorney’s mortgage fraud unit in California with $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Justice.
If you are a homeowner who has been scammed, you can learn more or file a complaint online with the Attorney General’s office at: oag.ca.gov/consumers

You havent been to Soviet Monica lately!!!
JHk gave our LEED certified Solar parking structure an ‘eyesore of the month’ award!
Theres a great book on crime, that if you read
between the lines [more mexicans here=more crime]
is a real eye opener…by a police chief yet
SANFORD STRONG ‘STRONG ON DEFENSE’…
Its dangerous to wear certain colors to a ball game[that being said they are selling more booze at the games..they wont mention mexicans in their ‘search for a reason’]…..DEADLY DANGEROUS:
Suspect in Dodger Stadium Beating of Bryan Stow –
A man was arrested today on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon in the … outside Dodger Stadium, nearly two months after the unprovoked attack that … After getting a tip from an informant, a Los Angeles Police Department … in a coma after being attacked following a San Francisco Giants/LA Dodgers game. …

Most common animal killed at LA shelters,
the lowly hampster.
Most common small dog left there….Chihuahua.
Yes millions of dogs,cats,horses etc killed each year.
US consumption of chicken is up 100x? from 60 years ago.
Us cat owners kill 100 million birds a year by letting their cats roam.
etc…..
DID YOU KNOW PETA KILLS THOUSANDS OF DOGS AND CATS A YEAR..AS WELL AS SEALS FOR THEIR MOVIE?
I wonder what the carbon footprint of ‘pets’ is!
WOLFGANG PUCK RECENTLY SAID..’GROWING UP WE ATE MEAT 1X A WEEK’!

Jews are 100% in favor of the Hispanic Invasion at the higer socioeconomic levels. They have prospered here more abundantly than anywhere since the Roman Empire. This is their gratitude.
There are a few “Amren” middle class Jews who are against it. But they are dwarfed in both numbers and influence by the others.

I do believe in conspiracy theories because I read Machiavelli. My being manipulated and taken advantage of, to be propagandized, brainwashed, lied to, so that I may, or will act in what is against my best interest, that someone else benefits from by design is conspiracy. Vast Right Wing conspiracy? Does Satan have to resurrect Hitler at halftime at the Superbowl while the leaders of the republican party grovel on their knees in homage?
Our monetary system, democracy, and most of what we call our our culture is the result of conspiracy. PROPAGANDA is conspiracy. Advertizing is conspiracy. Dogma = conspiracy. Religion=conspiracy. Fox News is conspiracy. We’re in a Matrix of conspiracy as deep as the one in the movie. Our government is ran by conspirators. That politicians should be admired, or trusted, given any honor or accolades of virtue for having been elected is stupidity distilled. People that seek power, have it by taking it from you and any expectation that what benefits you, their constituent, will take precedence over what will benefit them is like giving a serial rapist Viagra, impunity, and the keys to every whorehouse and harem on the planet and expecting celibacy.
Our entire perception of our lives and reality is corrupted to what an unaffected observer would have little choice in concluding as mass insanity. Over 500 years ago Machiavelli put it plain. The nobility – aristocracy – rulers – powerful, (take your pic) always have the advantage because they are educated and avaricious. IE., predators that conspire to exploit – dominate – enslave – master, or do what ever it takes to live as best as they can at the expense of the peasants that simply want to be left alone. Predator and prey, master and slave, etc. Religion, ideology, patriotism (I pledge alliegence to the flag…) the public school system is/was a conspiracy to train the populace to live by the clock, obey bells and prompts, teach the rudimentary skills to work in factories owned by the very same plague of masters/owners “princes” fascists, priests, capitalists, that have caged our minds and/or bodies and trapped even our evolution from progressing out of the predator v prey Darwinian bestial law of the jungle that we so pride ourselves on being above, as advanced, intelligent, and civilized, while the very same selfish manipulators promote superstition, ignorance, fantasy, barbarism, circuses and stadiums to create some artificial abomination of unity to replace the personal/social/ bonding/ interaction to the tribal-extended family relationships that are and have been essential to the survival of our species, and that the English language doesn’t even have a word for! An Orwellian “new-speak” success.
News Flash Mr. Kunstler. Conspiracy is everywhere. Failures in journalism? How about this conspiracy theory. The media and what you refer to as journalism is censored and controlled by whose interest it serves and that isn’t us. Here’s another conspiracy theory. We don’t live in a democracy, haven’t for all of this century at least, without even considering the aspects of propaganda and the deliberate dumbing down of the population.
Conspiracy time. There is a conspiracy taking place right now by our government, including the the House, Senate, and Executive Branch between the media, Wall Street, and multiple government institutions to convince the American people the complicated financial instruments and procedures used by the banks are simply to difficult to bring to trial and have a jury understand. The regulators were behind the curve in understanding how these things worked. People didn’t see it coming, and being stupid is not a crime etc. Censorship and lies. Absolute bullshit. The only impediment to the successful prosecution of the crimes is the will to do it which brings us to the question of why.
There Mr. Kunstler is a mega conspiracy. Why has nobody been prosecuted. Why no congressional investigations other than obvious kabuki dances? How about a little interrogation? When asked yes or no, obfuscation is met with Contempt of Congress go to jail no bail. All the government agencies all over the place and nothing? How many state laws and jurisdictions are involved? Obstruction of Justice is a crime everywhere. Why wasn’t anything being done while all this shit was going on? Nobody knew? Everybody knew that wanted to know. I knew and I’m just a guy on the street. Finance is too complicated to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch? Houses appreciate by virtue of nothing? The financial centers all over America couldn’t understand you don’t get something for nothing? (banks a colossal conspiracy fraud from inception) The question of why is a huge conspiracy once past propaganda protecting that question.
Not satisfied? To complicated? Throw their asses in jail like the pieces of shit they are and see how fast they squeal on each other when they’re deprived of their first class citizenship and treated like how law enforcement and the judiciary treats crack dealers, Bradley Manning, or cop killers. No bail, stripped down, bent over, ordered to “spread’em” and cough while some morally bankrupt automaton stares at their rectum, orange suits, 24 hour lights, 65degree room with a steel bunk to suck the heat of them if they get to comfortable, institutional grade cold turkey meatloaf, and no more than 1800 to 2000 calories a day of food with little to no nutrition that is so disgusting it will take them days of being hungry to be able to force down. Can only talk to their lawyer through phones in rooms separated by thick glass. Confiscate and seize all assets. Give them a court appointed lawyer with 180 other “clients” that doesn’t want to hear anything other than plea bargain.
Oh, their rights. What f*.*en rights? Couldn’t be rights, because that’s another conspiracy. You, me, and everybody else has only what the government gives you, or you can buy, and “rights” we’ve all been told are not given, but inherent, which is all part of the conspiracy and fraud there is branch of government dedicated to justice and the rule of law, equal protection and application of it under the law.
Recovery? There’s a conspiracy the media, banks, corporations, and everyone is cooperating on. Why are thousands of people either permitting or committing the most massive financial crime in history bringing mathematically inescapable ruin to this country? The justice department does nothing. The Secretary of the Treasury is an admitted felon. As confessed, never prosecuted and should be in a solitary cell under Bradley Manning waiting years for trial. Proof positive Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan daily front-running trades reporting perfect Quarters without bothering to even try and hide their frauds.They are looting a burning building. Look at the fraud wide out in the open.
If everybody had full time employment tomorrow, by magic all the industry and factories popped up out of the ground fully functional with the latest and greatest, and all the people by the same magic knew how to run the factories, and do every job as good as the best in the world, it wouldn’t make a difference. The same reason none of all those trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve bank is directly and indirectly giving away is not being invested in industries like textiles, shoe factories, steel mills, TV’s, anything. Because there wouldn’t be any body to buy it. China is still selling shit to us, and they know we can’t EVER pay them. All these factories and jobs that suddenly popped up, employing the whole country, and what we do with all the stuff that we made, sell it to China?
That’s the why. And there’s the heart of the conspiracy. Just like peak oil that isn’t talked about. The thing no one talks about is that we were F*.*ked years ago. The banks have to lend money, like a shark has to swim or die. Why is it never asked, what else could the banks have loaned money for? We couldn’t and still can’t compete against China. Some one answer that please. Where are these emerging markets? There are not enough resources for us and them. They grow we stop. All systems end, and ours has ran it’s course. Nothing grows forever. Stars and entire galaxies stop growing just if they have to be blinked out of the universe through a black hole.
Who thinks the upper echelon policy makers of the US, especially the those directing our foreign policy don’t know all about peak oil? Think Penis Cheney and the executive branch full of oil people weren’t perfectly aware? Think that our government will eventually catch on and do something about it? They are doing something about it but not for us. How’s that for conspiracy theory? On the Oil Drum and elsewhere I don’t know how many times I’ve heard parroted, “Suadi oil reserves are a state secret” so no one can really predict beyond parameters set by the lack of information from some OPEC nations as to their oil reserves.
WTF? Anybody ever wonder why it’s not taken for granted that with all the military invasions, CIA assets, and over a trillion dollars spent, that the CIA or another branch of spooks knows the detail of every well in the middle east. With the million+ people we, our military has murdered before or after the fact in the middle east just recently, and assume they must’ve forgot about, or failed getting copies of the log books for the very reason we are there is ludicrous. To think that in a culture where bribery is normal our intelligence apparatus has failed to aquire through murder, mayhem, deceit, extortion, torture, robbery, or corruption, the detailed status of all OPEC oilfields in the countries of the middle east is illogical.
America is responsible for millions murdered in the middle east. We planned to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and knew children would be the most susceptible to the water born pathogens we were deliberately planning to create an environment for. Planned to the last detail, including the composition of all their water sources, pathogens too. Denied them antibiotics, vaccines, chlorine, and parts for their water treatment plants. Just another conspiracy.
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
Don’t like conspiracy theories? That’s easy to understand when there is a conspiracy to hide the entire legislative and executive branches of our government from their own duplicity in war crimes. The black hearted whore that so glibly stated killing hundreds of thousands of children was worth it, was never questioned during her Senate conformation hearing some time later to be Secretary of State what the difference was between a suicide bomber walking in to a public market and killing innocent civilians as a means of political coercion and the US siege of Iraq that was doing the very same.
You think the people that planned the invasion down to the toothbrush forgot to make an exit plan? Iraq was let tear itself apart. A military tactic I’d guess as old as Sun Tzu. I’m suppose to believe career military men forgot to advise the civilian leadership that the enemy would burn themselves out killing each other and nobody saw how that would be to our interests on multiple levels? We disbanded the army so how many (hundreds of thousands?) unemployed armed men could take there weapons home in a country without law, and us having banned the only people that new how to run the place from participating? That was an accident like all the water and sewage treatment plants we planned to blow up. The default point is where I just pointed them out to be. To assume anything else from the homocidal terrorists running the murder machine is where derision is deserved.
What about the Predator Drone conspiracy Mr. Kunstler? Does anyone question their purpose? Cheapest I saw on a quick google was 4.5 million dollars. Did we get the Taliban’s Secretary of the Navy and a couple of Admirals? We took out a the headquarters of an Afghan army division commander, three generals and a whole slew of brass last time? Who are these people we want to murder?
The most powerful military ever on the face of the earth. America the only country that can project an army size military force anywhere on the planet with air-force, marines, special forces, engineering battalions, and aircraft and missile naval support from an aircraft carrier group in a few days. Over 800 military bases and installations with US troops stationed on them (not including classified) all over the world, with multiple global satellite surveillance net worked to cover probably the whole planet. And we’re going to blow up some hut or stone house with a dirt floor, probably with no electricity, and only intermittent power if it has, because? We were scared the dreaded enemy might stampede a herd of goats? Get real? really GET REAL!
9/11? I don’t know what happened. Conspiracy theory? Definitely. What can I define? I know with the certainty of a man that has confronted death head on and without hesitation would or will stake my life on my conviction that I’ve been lied to by what I also know are amoral liars and homicidal sociopaths or worse, with a depiction of events that doesn’t stand elementary scrutiny from the first look. What happened on 9/11 is a puzzle not worth the effort to solve because it can’t. The muck surrounding the issue I don’t need. The governments explanation is like a cargo container of rotting fish and I don’t need to know what species the catch was comprised of to know what I’m smelling.
My opinion of anybody that believes such obvious nonsense in the light of what the Bush executive branch has indisputably done since, is that they are tainted. Like a computer with a virus or corrupt program. To out of hand dismiss the possibility that our government or a sector within it it could never be responsible for 9/11or that it could ever be kept a secret is ignorance.
Our government, the people that control it, don’t give a shit about American soldiers, or any of us, or “terrorists” other than it’s more convenient for them if they don’t have to create them, or any of the naive nonsense so prevalent by the brainwashed citizenry. Empires are Machiavellian, brutal, calculating, and ruthless. If the US could attain command- control of the middle east’s oil and eliminate the threat of Iran to US hegemony for the cost of only one hundred thousand dead American soldiers you could order the body bags today.
For the status qoa to maintain their comforts they would and will if necessary heard us in to soviet style work camps/gulags and work us to death, or refugee/concentration camps where typhoid, dysentery, and the usual pathogens and starvation kill off the surplus people if that is the solution that suits them best. Surplus People and Machiavellian morals is the key to understanding the actions of our government.
For anybody still hiding, the predator drones are there to terrorize the population. Psychological warfare with some miscellaneous murder. That spells terrorism to me. I bet, I bet anything, that if those things were flying around your neck of the woods and dropping on peoples homes and wedding parties randomly killing people you’d think that was terrorism, and you’d be right.

People believe when they are told by the president of OPEC at a recent meeting in Vienna that the world’s estimated oil reserves will last for some 140 years and that that is such a long time [since they uncritically believe such statements] there should be no problem finding new sources of energy. They are looking at the problem with the narrow focus of simply replacing petroleum with something else in motor vehicles, something which has already been proven to work, such as either electric or hydrogen fuel cell, and they assume that the details will all be worked out at the appropriate time. Part of this is based upon the confidence inspiring notion that the cliff if relatively far off, especially in terms of the time-scale of the individual, which is admittedly quite circumscribed. If they have children they might worry a little more. For those who are more worried they are easily fobbed off with tales of plentiful biodiesel to be obtained from salt-water algae. Other people fantasize that the oil reserves are being replenished via anaerobic bacteria or some sort of vague vulcanistic processes down in the mantle of the earth, the fantasies are probably limitless.
To me it is not a question of whether such technologies could not eventually be worked out but rather what happens to the damned economy while we’re in the process of running out of oil. And then we’re also nearly uniquely screwed in this country owing to our assumptions that there was no problem which has given us the unsustainably bloated exurbs replete with 20 acre ranchettes and hours’ drive from the nearest job which might conceivably pay a living wage.

“The Rain gods have blessed us again today. I am sick of being blessed!”
Send some our way. We haven’t seen any rain to speak of in almost 2 months. We’re choking on sand and dust down here. I’ve never seen farmers actually sprout their crops with irrigation. Kind of ominous actually.

Mean Dovey! Helluva handle to run across today!!
How the hell are ya? Still fightin’ that purple cabbage weed? Have really enjoyed hearing about your garden and seeing your recent art. Thanks for staying in touch. Did you get my message about being in Blue Ridge July 7-12? If you want to do a short course on permaculture or French Intensive gardening, let’s do it!

People pay heavy attention to sports. Ergo, they have a reason to know what’s going on.”

Sports is supposed to act like a Meritocracy – only the best get to win, with the best defined in hard numbers (scores). Ergo, anything that messes with that image (drugs, gambling) is looked at askance.

There’s independent voices in Sports. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that Sports Journalism is probably the only place where real journalism happens.

So here’s a seventh reason (I’d say sixth, but since someone declared that today’s news wasn’t libertarian/corporatista enough for him…): enough people still care enough about sports that it occasionally gets honest treatment.
(As compared to the news, in which people who watch ABCNNBCBSFOX don’t necessarily care enough about the truth to find it.)

Like the painting! But we’re not suffering from anything more than dry throats in south Georgia, unfortunately. If there is nasty weather on the way, will you just make sure it includes lots of rain? K? My crops are mostly up on raised French Intensive beds; they can handle a deluge. Lord knows I could use one.
Oyster mushrooms are running again, and we did manage to bring in over half a bushel of green beans today, 4 fat shiny purple cabbages, the season’s first zucchini and straight necks, and the last of the broccoli. I’ll miss you most, broccoli…

“This isn’t the first time I’ve said we could wake up one morning and find a Pentagon general in charge of things.”
We can only dream. Let’s hope he’s a patriot and not a globalist like those currently in power. But I doubt any patriots exist at the General level or in the Pentagon.
Still it’s nice to dream.

WHO POSTED THE PIECE LAST WEEK ABOUT THE SDS?
[a book….’duped’?]
In any case this is going out to that poster……
from fireandreamitchell.com
Now that Kevin Jennings is leaving the Obama regime, lates take a look back at just some of the Kevin Jennings greatest hits:
Hid pedophila from authorities
Inspired by NAMBLA founder Harry Hay
Promoted fisting to 14 year olds
Kevin Jennings
GLSEN 2005 conference promoted anal sex in parks with strangers at teen conference
Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings/GLSEN promoted book that detailed gay sex between FIRST GRADERS!
Well now it’s time for Kevin Jennings to move on.
According to CNSNEWS, is leaving his post as Obama’s “safe school czar” to lead a non-profit coalition-building organization called
Be the Change, which “creates national issue based campaigns by organizing coalitions of non-profits, social entrepreneurs, policymakers, private sector and civic leaders, academics adnauseum…….

hey mean dovey cooledge, i am not sure why JHK has it in for you southern dudes, I lived down south and found the people, both black and white, very hospitable? and prone to talk in depth about the matters which concern us all. Anyway, may the sun shine on your face and the rain fall gently upon your fields. RT

Hey Tripp, I feel for ya. I know yer havin’ a drought. I hope it does not become as dry as south or west TX. and I hope ya miss that shit goin’ down in the midwest. We seem to be lucky here in the NE region. not to cold, not to hot, no ‘canes or tornadoes to speak of, earthquakes, or “raptures”! just the iffy grow seasons and fairly steady weather. O’ course we do get plenty of snow but I like the snow!makes for a steady melt. I hope global climate change does not F with us too bad! Even if the ice caps melt I wil be above it. My kids will probably be fighting off foragers for the turnips though!

Tripp, your gettin’ green beans and squash! bite me! my peas are only 6 inches high and if I put in squash the seeds would rot! do you irrigate with rain barrels? Permiculture or not u need water! Just sayin’ I would put the beans in but I know they would rot in the ground. Luv your posts!

The Pain
O’ the Pain
The rain
O’ the rain
My seeds need me and I need them,
I am sorry I’ve forsaken them
They fight as I sow
To find Their root and grow,
From soil I have tilled
That their life should begin
But yet they are devoured
By Rot and decay
As the rains of the Gods
Fall incessantly from the heavens
My garden becomes fallow
The soul becomes but shallow
Someday the sun will come again
And thence might heart will rise!

Here is what I meant to say before, I understand
it better than I did this morning. “Heresy”, this
is the concept. What JHK is saying is heresy, but
of course, there can only be heresy if there is first, orthodoxy. And without really planning it, that is what we have created, in this so-called culture of ours. There is no name for this orthodoxy, why should there be? What’s normal doesn’t need a name. Now, we have reporters, they are part of this construction, but they are hired to tell proper types of stories, and if any heretics should appear, to help expel them.

Ya sidestepped my question, Tripp. Do you have a storm cellar or plans to build one? I really like the pictures of your place, but all that flat land gives me the fantods.
Here in the hills and mountains, we get the occasional twister, but nothing like you folks on the east coast. There was that weird, one off event in the early 70s down in Vancouver, Washington. Killed 6 or so people.
The funnel formed over the Columbia River and moved north. As it scrapped the ridge top, it destroyed a small shopping center. Then it dropped down behind the ridge and destroyed a school. Luckily, late in the afternoon when everyone had gone home.

So… in a word… Confidence. Humans are a confident species. So we aren’t worried about trivial happenings such as peak oil. Because we will find a way to wriggle out of it. In our mind. We must be a very confident species. Because we ignore the fact that all previous two dozen civilizations to date failed – every last one of them. The ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans – all failed to create a sustainable and lasting civilization. Not to forget the dismal failure of the Easter Island civilization which should be a stark warning to Industrial civilization which is obviously unsustainable. So… in spite of those previous and numerous catastrophic failures, we are optimistic that it won’t/can’t happen again. Optimism must be a genetic feature. It’s in all races at all times. So… I think… we will go over the peak oil cliff to our destruction for sure. With optimism. Ha ha ha. Rolling on the floor laughing my a$$ off.

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
How to dismantle the mind, piece by piece
The three basic principles “1) P = P” “2) P > not P” “3) Every event has a cause” have been the Three Lies that have imprisoned the mind of Western Civilization since the time of Parmenides. Those ancient philosophers are still laughing at us, in their eternity, playing with ever new universes, new mind structures invented, new sense organs, new contraptions that are used to think and experience, but these contraptions are planet size machines with so many moving parts, so many emotional and sensory states, they explore all states between extreme pain to extreme pleasure, and all mixtures, a linear combination of these 2 items into other items, in a never ending array of new experiences. An infinite recursion into new items, new delimitations, new states of states as in the same relationship an emotion has to sense organs, so has an item A to emotions, and hence the same an item B to A, for infinity, as in the limits of functions in mathematical analysis.
1) Principle of Identity: P = P. P is P ? What is “is” ? How can anything possibly be itself ? How can anything persist in time or space, no matter how small the interval ? Impossible, this principle is insanity, this principle is “false” if any principle has ever been false, nothing is equal to itself no matter how hard you try, it is totally impossible, and not of this world (in fact philosophers were talking about another world, they have a secret message hidden that goes by, “take everything we say and the truth is the exact opposite” but only a few chosen people have been able to see through this).
2) Principle of Non Contradiction: P > not P, means Nothing can be both True and False (wondering … at the same time and in the same point in space ?!?, or is that a metaphysical – platonic space where time and space don’t exist, hmm…another insane and impossible metaphysical problem that has popped into my mind). But this principle is not true, everything is both true and false and all the intermediate values (between 1 and 0) the real world expresses itself through. The principle of non contradiction is false, it is one of the most false statements in the universe (since there are degrees of falsness, it is a linear function, an analog function, it is not a digital 1 or 0). The real statement should be P = not P. How insane can you get ? How is it even conceivable and possible that P isn’t also not P ? How can you not see that P is everything you want it to be, even its opposite, especially its opposite since it can exist only by comparing itself and expressing itself through its opposite. The “Principle of Non Contradiction” is false (and by the way is true exactly because it is false, in an infinite recursion of the mind crashing its puny mental “logical” computer program).
3) Nothing happens without a reason. Another totally false statement, absolutely insane, since everything occurs without reason, everything is an event without a cause (and can you tell me what is the event and what is the cause, or is it the other way around, and do these events go from – infinite time to + infinite time (and space?!?!, or somewhere else, in some other fake, metaphysical box ?!?). The real statement should have been “Everything is Completely and Totally Unrelated to Everything or Anything Else”, it is completely independent from everything else, it is infinitely distant from any other item, entity, or delimitation the mind can conceive. Obviously the “size” of these entities becomes vanishingly small as they cannot have any extension of any constituent parts, since then they would be related to something, but this may also be a linear function, an analog situation.
Anyways, I could go on, how I love to demolish all of our certainties, at least demolish them before the world (which remember, is your enemy) will demolish them for you and before you, but you can play ahead of time, and fool god. There is no safe place, no safe logic you can use, no absolutes, no certainty, beware. But just take all of the above and assign as true the opposite of it (or is that the opposite of the opposite but at a higher relationship ?!? hmm… another infinite recursion, another Impossible Metaphysical Problem that popped into my mind).

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=175202
Tired writing about social issues, only one simple thing popped in my mind: why on earth doesn’t everyone prefer lower home prices and rent prices ? Why on earth is this “bad” ? If home rents were only 200 dollars a month, or home prices only 50,000 dollars to buy (what their real value should be) wouldn’t everyone gain by this ? Wouldn’t it benefit everyone ?
Shouldn’t all the economists worldwide chant “Lower home prices and rents”, as this is the easiest solution to increase the value of salaries, the possibility to consume and buy more increasing production, as this really increases “competitiveness” and freedom and flexibility in a society as people are freer to move, and change jobs and their pay goes much further and can do more things.
Oh, I forgot the banks and capitalists have to force people into huge debts paying so much monthly for a mortgage or rent, as they keep on hogging trillions upon trillions: go on obama, declare that from now on, rents will be no more than 200 dollars a month and homes shall not cost more than 50,000 dollars, go on man, you can do it, don’t be a scaredy cat in front of your real bosses.

Asia;
The person who posted about the SDS and weather undergound last week … that would be me.
I’m not surprised about Kevin Jennings. These people are prominent in the Democratic Party. In some ways its what the Democrats are all about.
Check this out. Here in Connecticut our new (Democratic) governor is attempting to wrest concessions from public sector unions in order to balance a $2 billion budget deficit and $20 billion unfunded liability to pay public sector employees generous pensions (up to $250,000 per year). His chief negotiator is a Homosexual activist actually ‘married’ to another dude. They had a ceremony performed by out AG, who is now a US Senator. I know people who attended. I wasn’t invited, but I hear on good authority that it was vey sweet. The official theme was ‘Lavender and Cream”.
Here’s the kicker. Three out of the four PS Union chiefs he is supposed to be negotiating against are Homo activists too.
Its one big circle jerk.
-Marlin

Machiavelli/old6699/spider;
Dude, give it up. Your wasting your f——g time.
I’m going out on a limb and speak for everybody here: We think you are a crank, and perhaps mentally unbalanced.
My advice to you: get a blue collar job where you actually have to do physical labor, which would go a long way in dispelling you of your bullshit philophys.
-Marlin

The simple answer about rent and home prices is that these ownership units are supposed to represent equity. The private owner whether it’s is a landlord or a home owner is supposed to own the value of that property and make money on it.
The real issue here is that they bubblized the value of these units in the last 30 years and they became extremely expensive. A distortion of their value for the kind of debt peonage that you are describing.
That said, it would be very hard to turn back the clock by choice, as many people would be undermined.
What would it take for these values to go down would be a complete change in societal values and we aren’t seeing anything like that now.
Everything is being done to boost the prices up again. That’s the system we live in.

At this point it is becoming manifestly obvious that we don’t even need peak oil to do ourselves in; our managing of the economy is so misguided that we could sink ourselves even with permanently secured supplies of abundant and cheap petroleum. After all, should there be a technological fix somewhere down the road, not an entirely impossible eventuality, then we could merrily go on our way cooking the planet with our emissions, rendering the Earth uninhabitable.
People in general have a false sense of security or confidence for a variety of reasons. First of all they are being reassured by their presumed betters that the situation is well in hand, and they are plainly dumb enough to believe this. There is also the common inability to distinguish between the built environment and the real environment, which is nature. Since the built environment hasn’t yet broken down this in itself breeds a certain obliviousness to eventual consequences of our actions. And then finally, it is just easier to blithely trust that the situation is well in hand, the department of energy is going to rescue us by pulling thorium fueled reactors out of its ass, or incremental imporovements in the efficiency of internal combustion engines or fuel cells will miraculously combine to make everything okay.
When things don’t work out to everyone’s satisfaction then the boom will fall and adjustments will be forced upon us by circumstance. That is when unviable arrangements will be abandoned, vehicles will be skeletized to an ultra-light/off-road configuration, or many will even resume riding horses as their POVs. Of course with the demise of industrial farming it might prove difficult to feed those horses.

“I’m going out on a limb and speak for everybody here: We think you are a crank, and perhaps mentally unbalanced.”
-marlin, to spider-
I sort of like some of OldeSpiderM’s stuff. I wish he’d write shorter posts and address just one big idea at the time. And I don’t know why he double-posts so much – that’s a little strange.
But I wouldn’t call him a “crank.” He is a little obsessed – and it’s pretty evident that the throttle on his brain is stuck “wide open” much of the time when he’s in a mood to type for CFN and ILovePhilosophy.
As far as “mentally unbalanced” – a guy who named himself for two political approaches is having a discussion with a guy who named himself for a rifle – about a guy who named himself for an arachnid. Let us consider – –
“….motes vs beams in eyes…”
-jesus- paraphrased
“My advice to you: get a blue collar job where you actually have to do physical labor,..”
-marlin, to spider-
Maybe that wouldn’t hurt, Marlin – but I suggest our old Spider needs to get laid – a lot!
Honestly, he as much as said that last week. There’s somebody for everybody, Spider.
Have you ever tried computer dating?

“That’s the system we live in.”
True and I don’t see that much will be done to change that since Wall St. is the shadow government calling the shots and….Too Big To Fail.
For many years, a stable economic picture was back stopped with home values at 3 X yearly earnings.
Given the incomes of the folks where I moved to in the semi-rural sticks, no home would cost more than $100K, but that ain’t so.

Vlad,
About Iceland. Michael Hudson was a consultant for a number of European countries going through the IMF-bankster austerity plans. In the model of neoliberal globalism, Iceland was supposed to seel all its public assets destroying the nation’s future ability to make money on it’s infrastructure. I saw a number of videos with Hudson advising Iceland to not pay them back and allow them to get a foothold into the country.
Can we break this paradigm of little collapses for the fortune of a few?
One more thing I was thinking this morning is how allowing the Mexicans to flood this country not only lowers the rates for labor, but also dilutes the American culture. It’s a part of the Global paradigm that seeks to flatten the world both culturally as well as financially. They would like a one-religion world as well.
I don’t always agree with you by a long shot, but sometimes you make a good point.

Something for all you nice urban liberals, the “mob and rob” has become the new cultural outlet for african-american youth. It seems a donut shop in NYC got its revolutionary moment this week.
Then on the other hand it seems whites are waking up to the facts that they are discriminated against. I’m sensing a field of blackbirds moment coming on these days.
Anyway Jim in a country ruled by the religion of Political Correctness, enforced by the passive-aggressive sadists how could anything be seriously addressed?

Tripp – I will be out in New Mexico that week. But I would like to pull some honorarium $ for you to speak about sustainability and permaculture in the fall maybe.
That weed has aggressively colonized the field. It has choked out anything in its path – including the clovers that the bees depend on. The health of my tiny ecosystem is at risk. I understand the principle of letting it do its work – however a diversity of plant life serves the greater good based on my own observations. I did however, plant tomatoes right on top of the spring lettuces. I cut them like you said and left the tops to decompose.

“I haven’t posted here in months because Jim’s bigotry toward the american south is not only rude, but poorly informed….”
-meandovey-
Hey, meandovey, and welcome back, neighbor. As I recall, you’re right over the southern spine of the Appalachians from me.
You’ve got to cut JHK some slack on his SouthBashing. He’s Jewish and seems to be a genuine true-blue Yankee – for whateverthehell that means. So, I can understand why he’d fear the South a little bit. I mean – I’m not that relaxed when I’m in New York City, to reverse the examples.
And there are a lot of Southerners who read and post to CFN, don’t forget.
So I just take most of JHK’s Southern Stereotyping as a literary device. Plus, when he says NASCAR, or whatever, that’s not truly a Southern Thang – anymore, not by a long stretch.nascar.com/races/tracks/
Don’t get me wrong, MDC – there are plenty of people who hate and fear the American South. A couple of them post to this website.
I just think that, deep down, JHK is probably too smart for that. Plus, some of his SouthBashing is pretty funny. And living in the only American region ever subjugated by War – where it’s also hot as allhell in the summer – makes a sense of humor important.
Best regards,
PoC

“Last week David Stockman was on Tom Keene, making the usual media rounds (sometimes we marvel at his patience and endurance), as one of the few voices of fiscal prudence available to TV producers who seek to hold a balanced debate on the topic of US insolvency. Today, Reagan’s budget director was again on Bloomberg TV explaining the reality of the situation to Matt Miller for the nth time (by now even a 2 year old will understand the cul-de-sac facing the US), although presenting a new spin on the situation, namely that we have gotten to a point where both parties are implicitly pushing for a US default, while though their inability to reach a political compromise, blaming each other for this inevitable outcome. “The real problem is the de facto policy of both parties is default. When the Republicans say no tax increases, they’re saying we want the U.S. government to default. Because there isn’t enough political will in this country to solve the problem even halfway on spending cuts. When the Democrats say you can’t touch Social Security, when you have Obama sponsoring a war budget for defense that is even bigger than Bush, then I say the policy of the White House is default as well…That is the question that really needs to be understood better and appraised by the bond market. Both parties are advocating default even as they point the finger at each other.”zerohedge.com/article/david-stockman-both-parties-and-white-house-are-advocating-us-default

“And he doesn’t need to get over it and he doesn’t need to move elsewhere. He is perfectly within his rights as a citizen to voice his displeasure, organize, and do whatever he can to affect change. If you don’t like it, too bad.”
===
Thanks. So you are a pedantic douche as well a kook. Wonderful.

And I think that the American South may be the last region where the underlying culture still understands the importance of shared sacrifice.
Georgia’s governor just signed a bill that is being characterized as *Arizona Lite?* to attempt to control some of Georgia’s problems with illegal immigration.
Well, the day of the signing was marked by a demonstration by 200 (mostly, at least those who spoke on camera said they were) illegal immigrants literally jumping up and down in protest.
But before that, Big Ag had been figuratively jumping up and down – to stop the bill and stop the signing as “Bad for Agriculture.”
And the Chamber of Commerce was quietly jumping up and down behind the scenes because the bill was “Bad for Business.”
None of that mattered – the bill passed, because Georgians are willing to press their legislators to sacrifice Profits for a longer term good.
Now, if 48 other states will do something, maybe we can drag the Feds along to also do the right thing.
BTW, I haven’t mentioned this in a while.fairus.org/site/PageServer
Join FAIR.

“My kids will probably be fighting off foragers for the turnips though!”
I often wonder if this is really how it’ll go. Most people wouldn’t know what a turnip looked like if it hit em in the head, much less what to do with it. I guess if you got hungry enough you’d just pull it up and chow down though. One thing we’re doing in our garden is planting a lot of things people don’t recognize as food – new perennial veggies just hitting the market, tree veggies, aquatic veggies, strange fruits, edible flowers and bulbs, etc. We’re naturalizing things like sweet potatoes in the orchard too, that would take a while to track down. Not to mention sporing in a wide variety of ‘shrooms all over the place. Ostensibly the “turnip bandits” could come through and “wipe us out,” leaving us “destitute” and “starving,” and there would still be plenty to eat. Just something to chew on.
The other prong of the attack is expanding the gardens and orchards out over a large acreage over the coming years, and employing young people entering the “workforce” as it dawns on them that this might be the only work around (and as they get into it they’ll quickly see the benefits of it I hope, and hold some loyalty). I’m shooting for 40-50 acres of (human powered) intensively managed gardens and orchards, so there will be room for a lot of people. My quarter acre of gardens is about more than I can handle as a full time job. At least in the establishment phase while helping raise two very young children. I’m excited that they get to grow up foraging among the fruit trees, herbs, mushrooms, and berries, all day long though, from their earliest memories. My barely 3 year old daughter is already learning what certain herbs are used for.
If the crash happens faster than that I’m not sure even we’ll be ready. Although I did just bring in 75 bulbs of garlic to go with yesterday’s list, and planted another big bed of okra at dawn this morning. My second round of eggplants is sprouting; we’re already eating the first round. Peppers are swelling, and blueberries and blackberries are ripening. We’ve got a dairy cow, a quarter horse, a pack donkey, 15 chickens, 3 geese, 7 ducks, and 5 rabbits, not to mention access to several ponds full of bluegills and bass. It would be tight, but we could probably get by. Just don’t have enough to feed anyone else yet. And that’s the part that’ll save us, in my opinion.

“You are a great sport. I’m not mad at you anymore but I still seem to be throwing some heavy artillery your way.”
-vlad-
Keep firing, Viad. I don’t mind at all as long as it helps you, or me, or somebody – understand.

“And I think that the American South may be the last region where the underlying culture still understands the importance of shared sacrifice.”
Some good points, PoC. There are still a LOT of gardens in my area too, including a big one at each of the three residences on this farm. Southerners are clannish, and do a fair amount of hunting and fishing, and wild gathering too. That’s mainstream culture down here.
I talked to a guy the other day that does some work for my grandparents, and I had always assumed that he was a dumbass. Not at all. He was telling me all about the closed food production system he’s been working on for years, piling up spent hay and manure from his livestock to rot for next year’s new garden plot. Interested in mushroom production too. Used big words. Never would’ve thought it.
Funny part is, Jim might make fun of southerners, but when they run out of food in NY, you know where he’ll be headed!

Hey PoC,
Indeed I am a short and quite beautiful drive away. I take your point, and I agree that a sense of humor for a southerner is most welcome, especially when August rolls around. However, where JHK is concerned, he doesnt seem to intend it as humor anymore than a master of put downs uses “humor” to mask hostility. But more annoying than the content is the sheer repetitive volume of the charges. In short, a borefest.
Our rich agrarian heritage, rolling ancient mountain ranges, literary and artistic wealth as well as our well-armed citizenry makes yankees crazy. grrrrrrherherherhahaha.
Good to see ya, PoC.

$1,000,000 in 1935 =
$65,500 in 2011.
“Because its up against the wall redneck mothers
Mothers who have raised your sons so well
He’s thirty-four and drinking in a honky tonk
Kicking hippies asses and raising hell.”
-Marlin

Really worthwhile post! Thankfully, only a few crank posters this week keep wanting to blame one political party or the other.
When some pundit says that politicians don’t have the political will to balance the budget, what that really means is that they are afraid of the political backlash from citizens.
If gov’t deficit spending rankles some, watch for the protests that would occur if we tried paying down the debt and asking for sacrifices.

JHK wouldn’t have to move South to grow food — food grows everywhere — you just need to find what works in your region. Also in the ongoing CFN battle between Southerners and Northerners, I lived in Texas for many years and I can tell you Texans are the nicest people on earth but they are a little naive. One asked me what state “New England” was. I explained that New England was a region, like the Southwest is a region. He nodded and then asked “But what state is it?” Sigh.
But if the world ever collapsed, I’d still rather live at the Jersey Shore. Nice, mild weather and a chance to sneak over to the beach and play in the sun and sand! Cheers!

Great post.
One quibble. The sects in Iraq did not start fighting each other until 2005, after the US decided to implement the “Salvador solution” after taking losses from united Iraqi opposition.
There was always a plan to break up Iraq, just like there is a plan to break up Pakistan. It’s called divide and conquer, and I think that it’s older than Machiavelli.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/19/bin-laden-death-script-the-needed-trigger-for-next-step-pakistan/
Why was the ultimate trump card of “killing Osama” played at this particular time? Check out the link for Sibel Edmunds opinion. She is the woman who worked as a translator for the US government, and now has a gag order preventing her from telling what she knows about the lies of 9-11.

Who appointed the blog police?
One word at the beginning of the comments every week always inspires hundreds of peevish scolding words.
People are told they can’t link to their blogs.
A fantastic comment gets criticized for screen length. What? You don’t have a scroll button? How dare you insist that someone limit himself to your particular short attention span.
And marlin takes it upon himself to speak for us all against spider. Speak only for yourself, Marlin. I always read the first part of spider’s posts, ignoring only the skyscrapers on Mars part.

As long as regionalism is one of the topics today, I’d like to take exception with Cash and all you other Canadians in CFNation.
Every time we get a cold front in New England its a Canadian Cold Front.
Keep you stinkin Cold Fronts Home! Don’t dump them on us. This is my last warning!
-Marlin

Trippticket:
All that you are growing sounds good, but here’s an additional suggestion: Jerusalem artichokes. Since the plants look a bit like tall sunflowers, they won’t be a target for “turnip bandits”! They are really prolific, can be harvested in the fall – they store pretty well – or when the ground thaws in the spring. The are great used raw in salads, baked just like potatoes, in casseroles or strait out of the hidden-away-artichoke-patch in the backyard.
I like your ideas though; mushrooms are another good crop that aren’t usually considered by thieves…
And check out this video for a neat “Long Emergency gardening tool”: youtube.com/watch?v=QHEmnURcXdg

Isn’t New Jersey called the Garden State, because of it’s food production capability?
And wasn’t Long Island originally the source of much of Manhattan’s food?
We are lucky to live in a country of such abundant potential in so many places.
I live in a place that used to supply Chicago with food. They have turned many of the rail lines into trails, but they could be relaid in that nice straight, well-maintained land area.
We could have a decent country, if only we sent Wall Street bankers out to prison farms, to make an honest living, and dismantled the military-industrial complex and the Homeland Repression industry, leaving decent people to figure out a way to feed and house ourselves in a sustainable way.

No, I’m just sick of all your bullshit, all your thievery your genocidal machinations your degenerate sickness. We had enough of you fsckers. We want you to get the fsck out of our country our region and go back to where you came from. Take your money take your weapons take your propaganda outlets take your military bases take your thieving corporations take your CIA stooges/politicians and get the fsck out.
And can you pass that on to your boss when you clock out, fscker.

Automated Modified Mind Generator
These are supercomputers that generate 10^20 modified minds a second, each mind being infinitely different from the previous and all others, each mind experiencing wildy different worlds and lives and pains/pleasures/and many others, way beyond anything we can possibly imagine. And we have planets that are completely occupied by trillions of these machines, each one generating a new mind – universe.
Like one would be like this schematic:
QTWTT£&$YEUURURRRRRRRRR((8$))£O£=”=L$$£é°£Eé*E°§£é°ç::E;ç;ç;£çEEç;çD;ç;££=O$$?éE°£
for example, of course it is very far from anything we can relate to, but just to give you an idea.
Of course the principle of non contradiction and identity are a joke for these ones: there goes all of our logic out of the window. Cool, I like these new worlds.
On the ladies thing, I am impotent and not “cock-sure” and don’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell to relate in any way to a nice lady, but that is the way it went. There are so many decent looking of many ages from Russia to Europe to Canada to the US and all Latin America, so much ass to chase and never getting any. But I probably don’t want any just like the conflicting will powers in the mind play games, you never know who you are if even you “are”. I will keep on chasing that ass and never getting any and looking at dirty pictures or almost any picture of ladies) or looking at them on the streets. But this is because we want that which we can’t have and the more we can’t have it the more we want it, no matter what, even if you had a 100 nice ones, you would want just another, or something else, or a Ferrari, or whatever, we are set up to be always unsatisfied no matter what. That is because our mind operates according to a puny computer program consisting of 1) starting point 2) path and 3) target. But we should reverse the order, create problems, ever more problems, ever greater, break it all, unsolve problems, like in thermodynamics, there is only one way to go forward but a million ways to go backward, a million ways towards pain and only one way towards pleasure: but fool the system, unsolve problems, go backwards, increase problems and pain as much a possible, reach SuperPain before god throws you in hell, that way you fooled him.
We should strive to be bored, to not do anything, to be still and static for trillions of years, like death, the end my friend.
If the principle of noncontradiction is true and operating how come I can think up it’s opposite ? Why does the structure of the universe allow this ? Because it is all a trick, a bluff…
On the blue collar labor, yes, it would be cool to have hobby factories where you could work an hour or two, and put the wheels on cars or make rockets, but we will reach that.
I still stand by cheap rents and free salaries, overcome this crappy capitalist system.

Please now, show me another new schematic of a modifed mind, this way my mind can wander on what it can possibly mean, I can imagine the most incredible things happening in those new minds – universes.

“JHK wouldn’t have to move South to grow food — food grows everywhere — you just need to find what works in your region.”
That’s a fantastic point, and one I had hoped to expand on today actually (I’m writing my blog post right now, and got sidetracked). I was listening to a chef and food activist online the other night. Can’t remember his name, but very enjoyable, and someone at the end of the interview asked him why he wasn’t a vegetarian. And he responded that vegetarianism wasn’t appropriate for his region. That he was surrounded by pastoral New England and said that grazing animals were far more appropriate for his landscape than fields of vegetables. Then he said, if you live in southern California, in that beautiful Mediterranean climate that grows such wonderful grains, fruits, and vegetables, then by all means be a vegetarian. But trying to force your “ethics” into an inappropriate ecosystem was damaging, not morally superior.
Now I suppose that I’ve taken too broad a brush in my application of that principle. When I think about North America I think about grazing hooved animals as being appropriate parts of the landscape in general, not just where they really fit in. And I apologize to anyone who lives in a climate where vegetarianism is more appropriate.
Like ASIA in particular! Maybe Soak too…although it’s too bad he got taken in the fake rapture last weekend, and isn’t around to hear my penance.

Marlin, as a resident of the fine province of Ontario, Canada, I take exception to your scurrilous remark about bad weather in New England being our fault.
We just had a whopper of a thunderstorm last night that we’re told is the tail end of the horrible weather that ripped up Tornado Alley in your country these last few days. I hear it’s now on its way to our Atlantic provinces north of you. Sometimes in the winter we get snowstorms from Chicago too. It’s a two way street, my friend.
Besides, we’re all neighbours anyway. When my grandparents came here, some of their family settled in Rochester on the south side of Lake Ontario. We’re only forty or so miles away by boat in Cobourg on the north side. For many years a ferry operated between us that brought coal and other goods as well as people back and forth. It stopped running about 1950. My grandparents would take my mother and her brother to Rochester regularly to visit their relatives.
I’d give anything to go on that ferry ride to Rochester.

“…watch for the protests that would occur if we tried paying down the debt and asking for sacrifices.”
Default is just another word for Jubilee. It will be much uglier. It is inevitable, so we should “get real” about the implementation rather than just let it happen willy-nilly like a tornado hitting Joplin. The national debt is built on fraud. All debts should be wiped clean, not just the debts of the filthy rich.

“Yesterday was Spain’s turn, as the governing party took a beating in local elections and unemployed young people moiled in the city squares. Many of them probably expected to work in corporate jobs. They may end up back on the farm or in the cork orchards.”
*******
Probably the United States and the world in general will require far fewer college grads in the future as the global economy mostly dissolves and everything becomes more localized.
There will again be a larger segment of the population involved directly or indirectly with food production and this will not require higher levels of education. In fact, education in general, including K-12, may be greatly constrained as the world becomes increasingly de-industrialized and falls back to a nineteenth century modus operandi.
For the few who are fortunate enough to attend college it will be like the old times – they bid their parents farewell, take a long, arduous journey to one of the few remaining universities and four years later return with diploma in hand. There will be few options in anything that resembles today’s “high tech” industry. Hey, we may see a return of horses and wagons.
Only the military will have a supply of “black gold” to keep their jeeps, tanks, ships and planes going into the farther future. The rest of us will have to do with what energy and transportation we can scrap together from “alternate energy” sources.
C-A-B-R-A-1-0-8-0

That’s a pretty nifty tool! Completely unnecessary down here in the sand, but nifty all the same. Plenty of people around the CFN garden in stony soil and might benefit from it more than I would.
Especially considering the fact that I don’t cultivate at all, once my beds are established. The footage of the gardener walking the corn rows on bare soil, churning up the ground in between is pretty much blasphemy to me. Then, to top it off, right at the end of the video he uproots a big beautiful queen anne’s lace with it! A better beneficial insect attractor is hard to find!! When will we learn…
Thanks for the reminder about the sunchokes though. My very first blog post, back in March ’10, had a bit about the sunchokes I grew. Couldn’t get any this spring, but they are on my calendar to order in the fall. Cheers.

No you’re just an Anti-White bigot is all. Any slander or abuse is fine as long as it’s against Whites. Why can’t you be a good Leftist and be against Israel at least? This is the basically the only good thing the Left has done in a long, long time.

Yeah new tactic in South Africa too – take White farmers in on trivial or trumped up charges and throw them in with hardened Black convicts to be gang raped. Then drop the charges and release them. Just one more great way to destroy and humiliate a great people. What a tragic decison the White made in surrendering. They had nuclear power and the ability to be self sufficient agriculturally. If they had had the courage of their ancestors, they could have given the Blacks a huge Country of their own and given themselves a nice medium sized one too. But they wanted it all – the wealth, the Trade, the Black sevants, the applause of the world so naturally they will end up with nothing. Just more rapes and murders.

The Shia and the Sunni have been fighting for the last 1200 years. There was a relative calm in Iraq because Saddam, a nominal Sunni, had terrorized the Shia into submission. Is this your idea of Peace? And as Cash always says – your geographical egocentricity is simply stunning. It’s not all about us. But I know that you don’t care about the Truth – but only about stirring the Communist pot.

Yeah I really hope they stay strong. What can the “World” do – invade them because their own scumbag bankers sold the People down the river? Even Europe isn’t so far gone as to allow that. They have the right to default just like any Third World country has. And they are in a much better position than any Third, Second, or First Country.
The Land is hard and barren but the population is very small. They had only barely begun to succumb to immigration madness. They do raise enough sheep and grains to live. And they have extensive greenhouses too. And then there is the sea. And the great gift of geothermal energy. And the People themselves are the high IQ Nordics with the highest level of literacy in the world. And there is some genetic diversity from the Irish wives and slaves that the Vikings brought with them. As well as some of the native dark Mediterraneans that even Scandanvia had – like Bjork. And to all this is addend their location: far to the North away from fallout and alot of pollution.
They are the most favored of all the world’s people if they can just realize it and keep saying No.

Well, you’re wrong. I know that the corporate media tells us they have been fighting, but where were the battles?
The Shia and Sunni in Iraq were intermarried, and the ethnic cleansing carried out by the US and its Iraqi puppets involved chasing people out neighborhood by neighborhood.
It’s not all about us? Don’t be an ass, Vlad. The US invaded Iraq and occupies it to this day, but that has no effect on Iraq?
Over a million people killed, four million in exile, land and water polluted, Monsanto seeds forced on farmers, oil denationalized, industries turned over to crooks, and you sit there and deny that the surviving people of Iraq are worse off today?

I have to chuckle at the folks who say when we are all local and we have little the government will not be able to tax us. Let us think back 1000 years. Where did ones farm production go? 1/3 for tax, 1/3 for work animal feed, 1/3 to eat to stay alive. Death and taxes are not going away with localization.
As the title says “get real”.

The world will need more college grads. The corporations prefer cheap college grads. A friend of a friend with a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry interviewed at GE plastics in Pittsfield MA. He was told good news we have a job for you at our new research lab in China. It pays $1000 per month.
In Egypt college costs out of pocket $22 per year. In Taiwan $1000 per semester. In Europe free. The world has no need for US grads with $200,000 debt. They can not work for $1000 per month.

Yes, for those ‘reading the tealeaves’ WE GET IT!
I have mentioned a guy named Jon here, lives outside Sil Valley, trys to sell real estate to the rich Chinians of the valley.
He had mentioned an ad there:
WEB MASTER, BE ON CALL, KNOW CODE, ETC
the job paid like 500$ a week.
India is producing 10 million to 20 million
people a year! Even if only 1 percent is
‘very smart’ thats 200,000 potential Einsteins
[or Maos] a year.

College debt is now more than credit card debt.
The ‘for profit’ diploma mills are ‘having a field day’ and keeping the uneconomy going.
A Filipino I know says he thinks like us but doesnt want to go home.
‘Itll be Warlords controlling each island as things implode.’
In other words We Are Mexico.
WARLORDS WITH FIEFDOMS..THE NEW LOCALISM
WARLORDS WITH FIEFDOMS..THE NEW LOCALISM
WARLORDS WITH FIEFDOMS..THE NEW LOCALISM
WARLORDS WITH FIEFDOMS..THE NEW LOCALISM

And as Cash always says – your geographical egocentricity is simply stunning. – Vlad
Wage, Vlad is right about this. Sometimes I think it’s simple chest pounding American chauvinism on your part, sometimes I think it’s a distorted view of how people in other parts of the world really think and act.
Imagine this: imagine for once not seeing your country in the worst possible light, imagine that the USA gave Iraqis a chance to rid themselves of a barbarous, murdering, fascist regime and to create a prosperous functioning democracy. But imagine that Iraqis took the opportunity given them, made peace between Sunni and Shia and Kurd, cut a reasonable arrangement for governing and sharing oil revenue. Did they? Nope. They went to war against one another.
Did Iraqis have a choice? You bet they did. They are not exactly helpless, Iraq had thriving, advanced civilizations thousands of years before Europe.
Imagine that evil Americans come up to Canada and encouraged Anglo and French Canucks to go on a bloodthirsty score settling spree against one another. And trust me, there are scores to settle. Or let’s say the evil Americans try to stir up trouble between the West and Ontario. To what end? Divide and conquer. After all, what we have up here makes Iraq look pipsqueak in comparison. We have everything a bloodthirsty empire (like the one you imagine the US to be) needs.
Would we go to war against one another because you guys “made us”? Um, no we wouldn’t. We generally use ballots instead of bullets. We’ve entertained two votes on secession by Quebec (1980, 1995). Did we send in the tanks? Nope. Was there any bloodletting? No there wasn’t.
It’s a matter of choice Wage. Canucks are adults. Iraqis too are adults, believe it or not, with a full complement of intellectual and moral faculties. Just like us. Such things are not just for European White people. Iraqis make decisions, their leaders make decisions. They have the option to pick up the gun and shoot or to not pick up the gun. As Vladdy says, it’s not all about you (“you” meaning the US).

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=175312
[quote=”quetzalcoatl”]
By changing neural matrixes/minds, you don’t change anything about the universe. You probably just create mental people who walk around fighting wars against dragons and knights when really they are just walking through the woods getting entangled by the trees.
.[/quote]
I answer:
By organizing carbon atoms in a way to create a thinking, conscious, living mind you don’t change anything about the universe, you just create beings fighting wars against other beings, their “will powers”, reality, the laws of physics, creating ever changing starting points – paths – targets, and after a short time dying. What is the difference ? What makes our life any realer or more valid than any other modified mind or virtual reality entity ? it is all a lie, all fake, all a temporary instability, all a temporary moment in which a chunk of Mass – Energy wants to lie to itself and believe and pretend that it is “alive”.
You just need an earthquake or tornado or sudden heart attack to die really quickly, so what happens to all of your “reality”, “memory”, “the story of your life and its assumed aggregate value” (another fairy tale, no one is keeping score, there are no scores to keep, there is no addition of results, only one fleeting instant after another and then none) all the fights you supposedly won and lost ? It disappears, it never existed, one momonet you are alive, and then eternity.
What happens to the laws of physics when you die ?

Did I say that the US was not involved? That we weren’t complicating things? That it wasn’t about us? I said not ALL about us.
Mesopotamia, Persia and the Middle East are ancient battlegrounds of religions and peoples. And they will be so long after the United States is just a bad memory.
Leave the agitprop alone now and then and just be content to be a human being alone under the stars. The rain down fiercely on our heads. Please. I don’t want a tornado to come and drop a house on your green ass.

You just need an earthquake or tornado or sudden heart attack to die really quickly, so what happens to all of your “reality”, “memory”, “the story of your life and its assumed aggregate value” (another fairy tale, no one is keeping score, there are no scores to keep, there is no addition of results, only one fleeting instant after another and then none) all the fights you supposedly won and lost ? It disappears, it never existed, one moment you are alive, and then eternity.
What happens to the laws of physics when you die ?

As a drop or “atom” of water, who are you to deny the Ocean its appearance of waves or causality? Your Parmenides is a dead end because he did just that. No science can come from such a viewpoint. If you don’t like my Vedanta, try Buddhism: pure cause and effect with no idea of substance or being at all. Go to Amazon and by “Buddhist Logic” for the full work up of Nagarjuna’s Anti-Metaphysic Metaphysic.

But who is it that experiences all this? Who is the One that once called himself Old? Now he is Spider feeling meaningless. But who or what is He? Who is feeling all this anomie? Just chemicals? Can you prove that? Don’t just emote and write – Look.

“i’d give anything to ride that ferry to rodchester.” isn’t it funny the things we long for from western society from that era. is it just nostalgia from our youth or a deeper longing for what our society has lost in the last half century? even though i am from the opposite side of the political fence i hear it in your words. i would love to be horseback and drink beer with my dad one more time. or eat my moms gumbo. along other lines ; i got a glimpse of the future this weekend fishing in guatemala. the trip was good, but conditions saddened me. obvious population overreach in a very poor place. seeing kids broke my heart. when i was going home sunday, i thought i would rather live in any of the broken down texas small towns i drove through than anywhere i saw in guatemala. i cant blame people for wanting to move here.

A follow up post about speeding up succession and fertility cycling in our food production systems, after last week’s discussion of a plant’s proper place in the scheme of things. Potentially game-changing stuff if you’ve got larger fish than normal to fry.smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/05/fast-forward.html
Cheers.

Asia, just wanted to make sure you saw my post about you upthread before I sign off for a few days. I need to focus on the farm for a bit, and my back is hurting from too much time at the desk. See y’all next week, maybe sooner.
Tripp

The sun showed itself in full today, after a 2 week hiatus, so I took a MC ride down to the community gardens in the Farmington Meadows to check things out. They are about 2 miles from here, along the Farmington River, a fertile stretch of land where people have been farming for 10,000 years, first the Algonquin Tunxis Indians, then, starting in 1635, English from Cambridge, MA, by way of Hartford. Now the town rents plots out for a nominal fee.
Many people were out working in these fields, weeding, planting, hoeing, building fences, you name it. For all you CFNers who don’t like immigrants, at least 1/3 of the families I saw working out there were obviously not from here, Peruvians, Vietnamese, Russian, Jamaican, Haitian. Meanwhile, on the little country road, my neighbors sped by in BMWs and SUVs, tinted windows rolled up, AC no doubt on full blast. I was thinking maybe we could learn something from folks immigrating here, people who lived on the land in their native countries, unlike us, who abandoned all that generations ago.
-Marlin

NOT SURE WHAT YR SAYING:
‘I was thinking maybe we could learn something from folks immigrating here, people who lived on the land in their native countries, unlike us, who abandoned all that generations ago.’
people destroy the enviornment

Marlin,
Regarding immigration into the US –
You have a laudable soft spot for the less fortunate, Marlin. I share your sympathies, believe it or not, I truly do.
You’ve also got a wistful longing for the family style behaviors that you and I experienced in our youth – we’ve talked about that before. I acknowledge that in myself as well.
But, Marlin, the argument goes that the US can only support

Oops – used a “less than” sign – trying to be fancy.
Some mysterious (to me) HTML thing clipped out part of this paragraph:
“But, Marlin, the argument goes that the US can only support less than 100,000,000 without fossil fuel inputs. Since we’re at 313,000,000 and climbing at 1,000,000/year – do you not buy into any physical limits to US population, at all?”

That’s cute, Vlad. Obfuscate away. I’ve got you by the balls (such as they are) however, because you are also “Mika”. And you can’t deny it. Unless you want to tell a blatant lie. I’ll be happy to welcome you to the adult world if you ever get there.
N.

You’re going to be sorry when a tornado drops my house on my head tomorrow. They’re predicting more and I don’t have a basement.
You and Cash are both willfully blind to the deforming power of dollars and weapons.
Sure, there are feuding tribes everywhere. There are competing drug lords. There are religious differences, and people who hate their neighbors.
But the US comes in and arms one side, or pays people to turn in their neighbors, or trains certain thugs in the art of terrorism, or actually drops bombs on one side in a civil war.
And you don’t think that that makes a difference?
Why, they always hated each other, and the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles supplied to them by the US makes absolutely no difference in their age-old rivalry. The million dollars handed to them has no effect. The mercenary thugs sniping their enemies means nothing.
Right.

Nice Bageant link, Wage.
A little pessimistic, even for Joe. No wonder the man decided to check out of his life, too young.
He acknowledges that “mouths and assholes” inside the US are far worse for the planet than those NOT in the US. But he can’t quite make the logical leap that it’s time for the US to stop growing its population through immigration or other means. (May he rest in peace.)
Here’s how it ends, for those of you too lazy to click links and read:
“Thus, I am moreover just waiting it out. Either I’ll watch my sorry assed species will walk right off that cliff, or I will croak first. Crappy set of choices. Meanwhile, on a good day I realize that I’ve still got horses to break, ball games to fix and beer to drink.
Stay strong.”
-joe bageant-
Meanwhile, in my corner of paradise – my wife is out of town for one of these increasingly stressful emergent situations that come with being blessed enough to have elderly parents.
So, I was grazing out of the garden for dinner. And I ate the first (maybe 2nd, 3rd, 4th – I wasn’t paying close attention) of those damn little green cabbage caterpillars that will signal the end of broccoli season in less than a month.
The juvenile caterpillars actually don’t taste that bad. But their elders spin webs inside the broccoli flowers that make the whole thing pretty gross.
After that I got into a wrestling match with a large slug for a late season strawberry for my dessert. (I won.)
This planet has physical limits.
The United States has physical limits.
If you garden, if you understand biology – you are aware of this. It’s time to do we can to spread the word.

I really wish it were possible to ignore the south. That is what it deserves. But the south specializes in atavism on every front. Anti-union, anti-gay, racist, anti-immigrant, anti-environment, pro-war, pro-military, pro-empire. I have to be forgetting another long list, but it makes my head hurt. We insist on dragging the rest of the country down with us. I doubt very seriously Newt (carpet-bagger), Huckabee, Haley, &c. enjoy any real leadership on the right, but they and many other southerners certainly enjoy playing the role. George W. and his bubba didn’t go north, you’ll notice.
Now Brother K. is a bit of a petty-bourgeois old lady. He complains about boys’ drawers hanging low and porcine Wal-Marters when there are much more important issues to concentrate on. True.
But even getting back to basics, one of his primary points about the south is that we are way too spread out and way too damn hot. Large parts of the south are likely to be abandoned as unsustainable. As if we understood that concept.
And I don’t care. The sooner the country as a whole repudiates absolutely everything the south stands for the better. Good riddance. Pound away, Mr. K.

Deck chairs on the Titanic, Lpat; but I can’t resist kicking them into new arrangements, anyway.
If the south had won in 1864 the world would look very different, no doubt. But the physical environment would not be quite as degraded from the triumph of American Style Capitalism, because that triumph would never have occurred.
The South LOST – and your whole list of atavistic allegations flows from that. We lost in a Culture where losing became the worst of Sins.
That we are still fighting the conclusions of 1864 on CFN is, at minimum, an indicator of how deranged the current US policy of intervention and nation building in the ME, and elsewhere, actually is.
That the south is now full of previously pro-union retirees, world-wide legal immigrants, and Yankee expat’s – who vote in the atavistic manner you decry –
Is a triumph of marketing and brainwashing.
Whose?

Bustin, your comment at 6:10PM Monday, 5/16 is a brilliant and funny take on the male sex drive and its relation to the elixir of power. With men there is little or no complexity. They just want to shove their member somewhere warm, snug and slippery. With women it’s a whole ‘nother thing about attracting and keeping men and it spans a lifetime … the clothing, the hair, the makeup, the zumba classes … it never ends. And the monthly nut for it can be staggering (screw funding the 401K — we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it). Attraction is primary. The actual sex is secondary.

Great article wage. Much I agree with. The us should do things differently for it’s own sake if for no other reason. We should use less resources and mind our own business more. Hypothetically if western civilization was removed from the planet it would not make a dimes worth of difference in the the third world. To lay all of the problems in the third world at feet of the u.s. Is ludicrous at worst and niave at best. Limiting immigration is essential for survival of the west. It is not hate just common sense. I garden, have bicycle, I am learning some other country skills. I think my professional skills would transfer to a lower energy scenario. On the other hand I do not feel guilty for having a nice car, traveling, turning on the tv or eating a steak. Only boat load birth control will ever resolve third world situation. Another boat load here would not hurt either.

Take for example: A man leaves the house with a wallet in his back pocket containing everything he needs on any given day. He will carry that wallet for 10 years or until it falls apart, whichever comes first. A women will select a handbag for use today from among a baker’s dozen she possesses appropriate to the current season, never mind next season. The selection is usually based on color coordination with her shoes which themselves could be the subject of a doctoral dissertation. View any episode of Sex and the City and by all means Google “Imelda Marcos shoe fetish.”

The myriad necessaries within the handbag worn yesterday are dumped onto the bed before transfer into today’s selected bag. The scene is reminiscent of the engineers at Houston jury-rigging the salvation of Apollo 13 from a table strewn with Space Shuttle paraphernalia. Ironically though, heterosexual men are oblivious to the handbags women carry so if those bags are somehow involved in the attraction-of-men dynamic it must be subliminal.

In the same way that a spider needs no instruction on how to weave its web, human females come from the womb equipped with the knowledge and instincts needed to attract men. But, leaving nothing to chance, mothers commence training their daughters in the arts and science of beauty shortly after birth. Like baby wildebeests — up and running before the birth fluids have completely dried. The processes and execution of their instincts and learning continue to the very day a skilled undertaker preps the female for her final viewing prior to interment.

My mother-in-law who turned 89 on May 3rd gets a “cut and color” monthly and is getting a manicure as we speak. Eyebrows are redrawn on a daily basis. Annual top-line revenue at Max Factor for eyebrow pencils alone runs in the multi-millions.

This past weekend I spotted this blurb in the NYT:
I’m getting old and I hate it, says Blondie’s Debbie Harry. The 65 year-old said “Women’s calling cards are based on their looks.”
Such truthfulness you don’t often hear.

“Does Satan have to resurrect Hitler at halftime at the Superbowl while the leaders of the republican party grovel on their knees in homage?” Just wait. That’s coming.
I’ve read a lot about conspiracies and even read The Prince once, but you put a lot of pieces of the puzzle together in that post. Leaves one feeling kind of sad for all the sheeple.

“A Filipino I know says he thinks like us but doesnt want to go home. It’ll be Warlords controlling each island as things implode.”
Guess I can cross the Philippines off my list of places to go when the missiles start flying.

I’m reading the Qu’ran….just for fun. In the 37th Sura (page 286 in M.A.S. Abdel Haleen’s translation) it explains that Muhammed described a beautiful woman as being as precious as an ostrich egg.
Woooo hoooo!
Jen

Of course that triumph would’ve occured minus an amputated south which existed only to feed cotton to feed the machines of the industrial revolution. If you think the south’s environment, yes, still largely rural, hasn’t been polluted by as many fertilizers and pesticides as the north and west, you may be dreaming.
We are not still fighting ’64; we’re fighting over the south’s continuing shitty history. The south continues to be in thrall economically and in imagination to the military. We welcome each and every intervention. No matter how bloody or completely stupid.
Alas. Most unionists lost their balls in the post-war labor peace. Snowbirds vote their class.

You could have been living in my basement by now if you had played your cards right. I love women with green skin. I would have taken you to see Wicked too. After the show, I’d buy you a witch hat too so you could sweep the house while wearing only that.

Read “I’ll Take My Stand” – a famous anthology of the Southern Agrarians for another perspective. Also weren’t there a few good writers from that area: Faulkner, Williams, Flannery O’Connor etc?
Remember, history is written by the victors. And after Lincoln was assasinated, the North proceeded to try to destroy the South just as Sherman and Co had tried to during the war. Luckily, Southerners rallied and fought back the forces of Yankee and Negro nihilism with the help of some good Northern Leaders.

I don’t. But you have to realize his attitudes aren’t coming from nohwere – they’re the traditional attitude of Judaism. These hateful beliefs survived the Enlightenment even at amazingly high levels of wealth and knowledge. Do the research. Ben Gurion believed that Jews were superior and that someday the world would be run from Jerusalem. Tikkun Olam is just a recipe for Global Jewish Totalitarianism. And the Hate Laws are the path thereto.

A good juxtaposition of the Armstrong thing and the banking meltdown.
Reminds me of a few years ago when John McCain was holding some Congressional hearings on steroids use in sports.
Which was apparently one of our nation’s greatest problems, while conspiring with Ted Kennedy to engineer a radical acceleration of population growth in the US constituted simply an innocuous little reform of our immigration system.

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
A Wise Guy says:
“You saying P is not P is not you saying P is not P, therefore you are saying P is P.”
I answer:
You can invent a new relationship of P with itself such that:
not (P = not P) : this can be thought of as P cannot also be not P, or the classical principle of non contradiction;
not (P = P) : this can be thought of as P cannot be P itself, or the principle of identity is not valid for P;
So you can write this new odd relationship of P with itself by inventing a new symbol (just like the imaginary number symbol i was invented for square roots of negative numbers) as:
P :-: P (sorry if the symbol may already exists somewhere, ignore its any other meaning, just use it in this context here)
Now what is :-: ? It is real, it exists, it is a chunk of information and has relationships with other information, interacts with our mind, is a chunk of Matter, Mass – Energy interacting with itself, expressing a Reciprocal Information Relationship but we can’t visualize it, can’t conceive of it.
That is a [b]Metaphysical Relationship. [/b] You choose only some logic, you create intermediate values, you make up all kinds of wacky laws, and you can create new universes with them: this will be done in new modified minds that have new neural circuits and chips and other items like wild chemicals that allow these minds to experience new universes and lifestyles…
Oh, but you are fooling yourself, there is nothing new under the sun, it is just more confusion, it is just a make believe thingy where you make believe and think that you have defeated the hard – solid laws of Logic and the Laws of Physics. Good, but I like to make believe, now what ?
And doesn’t matter make believe it is alive by creating such absurd complex carbon molecules interacting in such a quirky way with itself through cells, insects and man ?
Oh, I see, Matter, Mass – Energy is allowed to break the rules, is allowed to invent all of its crap called life, and really believe in it, but we are not ? No way jose’, we will invent everything we want, and lie to ourselves as much as necessary, this is[b] MIND OVER MATTER BIG TIME[/b] (or is it will power over truth ? or a good capable to delude and lie to yourself ? well, who cares, as long as it works, but it never really works as we always have slight doubts, the variable C, entity of being convinced is never 100 %, even in the most rigid logic and math and physics, but this is part of that trick universe that evil god handed to us).
Now contradict me, the more you contradict me the more you confirm I am right, the more I enjoy, I like to win no matter what. Now what ? I love to be Wrong and lose, I am a loser, so what …
Hint, hint use boolean algebra to show me where I am wrong…

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
A Wise Guy says:
“You saying P is not P is not you saying P is not P, therefore you are saying P is P.”
I answer:
You can invent a new relationship of P with itself such that:
not (P = not P) : this can be thought of as P cannot also be not P, or the classical principle of non contradiction;
not (P = P) : this can be thought of as P cannot be P itself, or the principle of identity is not valid for P;
So you can write this new odd relationship of P with itself by inventing a new symbol (just like the imaginary number symbol i was invented for square roots of negative numbers) as:
P :-: P (sorry if the symbol may already exists somewhere, ignore its any other meaning, just use it in this context here)
Now what is :-: ? It is real, it exists, it is a chunk of information and has relationships with other information, interacts with our mind, is a chunk of Matter, Mass – Energy interacting with itself, expressing a Reciprocal Information Relationship but we can’t visualize it, can’t conceive of it.
That is a Metaphysical Relationship. You choose only some logic, you create intermediate values, you make up all kinds of wacky laws, and you can create new universes with them: this will be done in new modified minds that have new neural circuits and chips and other items like wild chemicals that allow these minds to experience new universes and lifestyles…
Oh, but you are fooling yourself, there is nothing new under the sun, it is just more confusion, it is just a make believe thingy where you make believe and think that you have defeated the hard – solid laws of Logic and the Laws of Physics. Good, but I like to make believe, now what ?
And doesn’t matter make believe it is alive by creating such absurd complex carbon molecules interacting in such a quirky way with itself through cells, insects and man ?
Oh, I see, Matter, Mass – Energy is allowed to break the rules, is allowed to invent all of its crap called life, and really believe in it, but we are not ? No way jose’, we will invent everything we want, and lie to ourselves as much as necessary, this is MIND OVER MATTER BIG TIME (or is it will power over truth ? or a good capable to delude and lie to yourself ? well, who cares, as long as it works, but it never really works as we always have slight doubts, the variable C, entity of being convinced is never 100 %, even in the most rigid logic and math and physics, but this is part of that trick universe that evil god handed to us).
Now contradict me, the more you contradict me the more you confirm I am right, the more I enjoy, I like to win no matter what. Now what ? I love to be Wrong and lose, I am a loser, so what …
Hint, hint use boolean algebra to show me where I am wrong…

From that link,
A Wise Guy says:
“You and I both know what those symbols mean to you, you know a purple giraffe isn’t an orange elephant. If the language I am using right now are unclear to you, you should go back to school and take an English course.
If we were in the Saharan desert and I told you there was a lion approaching, you wouldn’t think to yourself, how do I know his lion is my lion, how do I know what he means by lion is what I mean by lion, words aren’t static, they’re a product of blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, NO, no you would run. You only talk like this now because you have the luxury of sitting behind a computer screen and pleasuring yourself with nonsense.”
I answer:
But why did Matter and Mass – Energy decide to invent the pleasure/pain circuits and interactions between life forms that force you to run ? It is a quirk arbitrary relationship that “natural evolution” developed because it wanted to “create reality”, it wanted to “wake up”. But it is not really successful as its individual entities perceiving and “living” die, so what is left ? It keeps on creating other new entities that perceive, feel, have action and reaction interactions through arbitrary pain/pleasure circuits (because there is some kind of internal score keeping game it INVENTED, like live long enough to reproduce ? or just fight for food ? or just avoid pain ? or any other puny computer programs, one transistor circuits, if pain BAD, if pleasure GOOD, billions of molecules and reactions that boil down to a one transistor circuit, go figure, so much for “intelligent design”).
But we invent “fluff”, we invent even higher levels of “not necessary”, of “quirks”, that is our destiny. We will change our minds and brains and visit new universes…
You want to see real “reality” ? Go on the SUN and look at what Matter should really be doing instead of making believe it is alive, or go on Mars and look at how the rocks are just there, they stay put, they don’t “do anything”, they are superior to this baby like game Matter plays with itself…

Fromilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
A Wise Guy says:
“In a literal sense, ^^^ is ^^^. In a symbolic sense, ^^^ is nothing, unless we agree to make it something.
In an inductive (space/time) sense, the ^^^ here isn’t the ^^^ here. In a deductive (same/different) sense, ^^^ is the same as ^^^.
Perhaps you’re confusing the multiple senses.”
I answer:
Two things come to mind:
1) We decide when and how to make ^^^ the same with itself or different according to where or how or what we intend to do with it: but in a metaphysical, therefore real world, you shouldn’t distinguish, you should be above “different senses”. Oh well, just keep on doing what you want, there goes “rigid logic” out of the window;
2) Let us agree to make P follow those laws I stated, and namely it can’t be itself and it can’t be different from itself. Now what ? But P is real, it is an Information Relationship that lives in a metaphysical world, an infinite recursion of existence denying itself.
But, on a more general note, I know that so much philosophy in the 20th century has been imitating the Sciences, Logic, study of Languages, etc. (has evaporated into sub branches of math or logic or whatever (what am I to know, I am a drop out, ignorant who didn’t even finish high school, just saying ) ). And they have progressed, but I like this more old fashion stuff, it is more fun, you can do whatever you want with it, who cares if it is all wrong, we are not going to build Rockets with this stuff, or use it where all the real Sciences like Mathematics, Physics, etc. have a total hold on all things practical, as it is correct that it should.
Maybe I like the more “artistic”, or “poetic” aspects of some pseudo philosophy and metaphysics…

PoC;
Its hard to predict the future, ‘specially when it comes to economics. Jim gives it a try and what carries him forward is his obvious literary ability. He is often wrong. From where I sit, the country does not seem overcrowded. Those folks working in the fields I spoke with yesterday are doing exactly what we talk about on this site. To exclude them because their children, 25 years from now, may join the consumerist culture, seems misguided. For one thing, there probably won’t be a consumerist culture 25 years from now.
Yes, I am a Yankee with English roots, but one strain of my family comes from Portugal. I know when they first arrived here in the 1880’s they weren’t made to feel too welcome. But by the time I came along I’ll be damned if I could tell any difference between the Yankee and Portugese relatives. PoC, despite all the BS about ‘multiculturalism’, which comes from the academy, immigrants become assimilated. It takes only a generation or two.
As long as I have you here I have some questions for you. All of Joplin, MO has been wiped out, more tornados last night, massive flooding in the Mississippi Valley, and the President is in London drinking hot toddies and playing crochet with the Queen at her Palace outside London. I understand Michelle and her entourage have also embarked on one ass-kicking shopping trip, yet again. I never expected much from this guy, but why is he getting a pass, considering how bad President Bush got hammered after Karina? Also, where are all the anti-war protests? Why did they end so abruptly after Nov. 2008. Do they only come out when there is a Republican president? Same goes for Gitmo. Until Nov. 2008 it was the worst place since Kolyma or Treblinka. Now you hardly hear anything about it. Why do you think that is? Its a curious state of affairs, is it not?
-Marlin
CFNation YD Post 1
New England Chapter

Vlad, there are people in every ethnic group who believe their ethnic group is superior. There are individuals who believe they are personally superior to others. There are whole nations who believe they are superior. In every religion there are people who believe their religion is superior. In every cultural group there are people who think other cultures are inferior. Even different regions of countries think they are superior to their neighbours (just ask Bavarians what they think of some of their northern Brüder, or Georgians about Yankees).
Deutschland über alles!!!

Why do you think that is? Its a curious state of affairs, is it not?
Agreed, Marlin
You make a good point.
Double standards no matter which side they’re coming from are infuriating. Both sides do it. The problem is the real progressives are most unhappy with the moderate Republican/free marketer who is Obama, but the right wing calls him Communist, Socialist and Hitler all rolled-up into one mixed race guy who shouldn’t be in the White House. So all this hyperbole creates sides that people stick to like glue. He’ll get to Joplin just as soon as he can….

Has anybody seen Rep. Roscoe Bartlett’s R, MD presentation on peak oil?
It was on CSpan last night. The guy is 85 years old and brings with him quite a historical perspective. He has charts, like Glen Beck. He was speaking to an empty chamber, though. I don’t think many in Congress are paying much attention to what he is saying. He implies that himself. I watched closely and he seems to be saying we are f—-d. He is the only person in public life I’ve ever heard seriously discussing Hubberts Peak and Adm. Hyman Rickovers’ predictions on energy problems made back in the 1950s.
-Marlin

Yes, we’re all a bunch of hypocrites and won’t protest when it’s our guy who’s an asshole. But mostly, anti-war activity during this past decade has been anemic owing to there being no military draft as there was during the Vietnam era. Instead we have socioeconomic conscription for persons such as farmboys from areas where there are no jobs so they must enlist in the navy like both of us did. The people I run into at subvets meetings tend to fall into two categories: retired chiefs, and nukes who got out after one six year enlistment to work in the civilian nuclear power industry, so they’re doing well right now.
I cut hair in a quasi-redneck barbershop where one of the other barbers is one of these curiosities namely a northern born Confederate sympathiser. If the confederates had won there probably wouldn’t have been any of this bailing out the British Empire nonsense by the Yankees as they would’ve had more modest aspirations. There maybe wouldn’t have been any Teddy Roosevelt Panama Canal building and Great White Fleet gunboat diplomacy either. Had the Germans done better during the first World War there would’ve been no war reparations to drive them into the arms of the Nazis and the second world war might never have happened. With no WWII the Cold War wouldn’t have happened either. But we’d still be petrogluttons I’ll bet.
There’s a slight chance that without WWII the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb wouldn’t have been invented yet, but I wouldn’t count on that. At any rate it is largely our own national grandiosity and triumphalism which is undermining us right now. Then there is our antique 18th century government which tends to be polarized along predictable culture wars divides. Will the Pig Empire [Abby Hoffman’s amusing term] pull this one out of its ass and invent the limitless bio-diesel via salt water algae aquaculture industry in tandem with thorium nuke plants? Doesn’t look like it. We’re still wasting our money on sitting duck nuke aircraft carriers, the latest folly of the Skimmer-Puke Admirals oblivioius to the Russian SSGNs laying in wait to send them to Davey Jones’ Locker. Apparently they never got the word that surface craft are obsolete, or else they just like having a ruinously expensive gunboat diplomacy fleet for show. This reminds me of that issue of The Atlantic which depicted the navy’s surface fleet as a flock of ironclad sitting ducks, waiting for the Russian [now Iranian] missile boats, guided missile subs, and backfire bombers to blow them out of the water. And finally, this giant fleet also comes in handy for protecting convoys of Liberian freighers bearing uncounted millions of tons of crappy plastic consumer goods [produced by slave labor in China] to ruin our balance of trade while eliminating all employment for ordinary people here who couldn’t afford to go to medical school so they could have a nice little sinecure gorging themselves on the backwash from the insurance industry which has enslaved us, namely the American consumer formerly known as the American citizen back when the government actually expected something of us and was known to actually demand that young men serve in the military.

Q,
Your latest entries on this blog has addressed what you might call sexual politics (or the war between men and women as you see it). I bet you love Tolstoy. (A wonderful writer to love)
I have the impression the ladies just can’t win with you.
A few weeks ago when we were discussing Russian art, you described the ladies who attended an exhibit as older, dowdy wearing sensible walking shoes. Now you’re describing the need for women to attract the men even at 89.
My feeling as a woman is that one wants to put their best face on to meet the world. It’s like brushing your teeth and combing your hair so you look a bit better to the outside world than you did when you slithered out of bed that morning.
It’s not just about attracting men, it’s about putting your best foot forward.

“Of course that triumph would’ve occured minus an amputated south which existed only to feed cotton to feed the machines of the industrial revolution.”
-LPat-
Exactly my point, Lpat, AND cotton was on its way out of the South, anyway – due to soil depletion and the cotton boll weevil. Cotton was keeping slavery going – slavery would have gone away, also – when cotton went.
Slavery was nearly gone worldwide, already – to be replaced by Wage Slavery, a more efficient Capitalistic system.
The 1,000,000 dead of the Civil War died for what became the triumph of American Capitalism – and THAT’S what has degraded the planet’s environment, far more than would have happened without a unified US.
I agree that the south is more militaristic of the regions. That comes from getting our ass kicked and having the recurrent urge to prove that we are not LOSERS – over and over. Basic psychology and sociology applies to socioeconomic regions as well as individuals, IMO.
Maybe this region welcomes the “interventions” more than others, maybe. Although a lot of New Yorkers would have killed with their bare hands right after 9/11.
But, Lpat, the “interventions” are not designed in the South. They are designed in the Globalist Think Tanks of Washington, London, and New York.
That’s where you will find the people who really deserve the blame.
Sounds like the Right Wing Authoritarian Aristocratic Elite is following a design. This is scary – my ideas are converging with those of Hancock1864 – REAPPEAR, Hancock!

PoC, the south was militaristic BEFORE the Civil War. I cite Andrew Jackson, our one true Soldier-President, and the Tennesseans and Cajuns, who became Texans, kicking ass against Mexico and the Comanche Nation 1830s-1840s.
-Marlin

JHK probably doesn’t read this babble, but if he does, would he maybe start an organizatin devoted to positive action, like a garden community or a intentional community, you get the idea. This doomsayer material is well received and taken seriouisly by me, but what now? Seems like there’s a rational, graduated and sensible transitional plan to make and carry out; rather than the hysterical end of world rubbish of the extreme christianists and other fundamentalists. Should we wait for them to elect insane people who will look for scapegoats as the crisis unfolds? I believe in doing the best you can in the place where you are, but perhaps we can create something useful and beautiful out of this now, or start now, while there’s only smoke, not fire.

I’m sorry, Marlin, but you are presenting Hope as a strategy.
“From where I sit, the country does not seem overcrowded.”
-marlin-
There were +/- 50,000,000 Native Americans when Columbus got here. Their numbers were limited by the physical environment – no fossil fuel use for Ag and medicine, mostly.
Let’s double those numbers for modern medicine and technology. Let’s double them again because American residents are just naturally lucky. (Lucky?)
That gets us to 200 million – which was probably an OK number. Now we’re at 313,000,000 and climbing at a rapid rate.
This can not end well, Marlin.
also –
“to exclude them because their children, 25 years from now, may join the consumerist culture, seems misguided.”
-marlin-
US residents have been marketed to the point that the Consumerist Culture IS America. Common heritage – gone – ’cause Washington and Jefferson were White slaveowners, or Christians – or some such.
There is nothing to assimilate into, anymore, except a nebulous yearning for *freedom* which translates into air conditioning, personal cars, cheap food, and lots of *STUFF.*
You are well intentioned, Marlin. But, written across the whole of America, good intentions are taking the US over a cliff – pulling the rest of the planet helplessly behind.

There were no 50m Indians on this continent.
Anyway has the US surrendered to Israel yet, or at least has the anshlus happened?
Bibi gets 56 standing ovations, the armageddon cult has gone secular and mainstream, and JHK wonders why this country is falling apart.
Now I know its the primary season and the morons of the political parties are lining up rich jewish donors and all, but if this pro-Israel crap continues on into the general election, then I have one suggestion, build a bomb shelter.

“There were no 50m Indians on this continent.”
-nw-
You’re right, the situation is worse than I painted it above.
50m in all of the Americas.
20,000,000 in North America.
Now, 313,000,000 and climbing in the US alone.
Overshoot is a terrifying thing to face.

Thanks for getting back to me on that, PoC. You make some good points.
These people are here. They are not going anywhere. We are just going to have to make the best of it.
We’ll just have to respectfully disagree this time, that’s all!
-Marlin
El Toro Farm
“La Casa de la Dulce Tomantinos”

In electronics, If you take an inverter, the logical NOR gate, and feed the output back to the input, you effectively get A= not A. And the “physical” result is either it oscillates going back and forth between 1 and 0 or it gets stuck at some fixed intermediate value between 1 and 0, depending on the physical (random ?) details of the circuit, but most likely it would oscillate at a frequency (pretty high I imagine). So this kind of representation of the relationship vaguely reflects and suggests an “infinite recursion of existence denying itself”, as physics likes to tease us with some kinds of Metaphysical “suggestions”.
But also, this simple (one transistor circuit more or less ?) materializes in a sense that A can’t be itself, but at the same time can’t be different from itself. But you get some kind of defined behavior, it remains tractable because it is an entity made up of constituent parts, so it can just make believe it is one entity (indivisible and justice and liberty for none ?) when obviously it is not since it is made up of so many atoms, etc. and being made up of many parts it can trick the relationship and fool it easily.
Also, a person having conflicting will powers (everyone is always in these states somewhat) can easily say “I can’t be myself” and at the same time “I can’t be but myself” (go figure what the self is). Again this is because a person (or mind or brain ?) is made up of constituent parts.
But in Metaphysics, A is a completely abstract entity, just like numbers (much closer to mathematical – platonic entities, but mathematical entities are still not 100 % Metaphysical entities), no constituent parts, no extension in space or time, no nothing, simply a delimitation, an entity, an item.
And in this very real world it really can’t be either itself or different from itself so it exists in a way we can’t imagine, it is totally intractable, but we can look at it from a distance in awe, and appreciate how astounding it is.
And so tell me what is the square root of the square root of no number at all ? Invent your new symbols, go on, create a new schematic of a modified mind.. show me a new design.

You know, Vlad, the image of me living in your basement isn’t as appealing as I think you meant it to be.
And I’ve seen Wicked. I thought that it sucked.
Like Obama, it’s popularity is a victory of marketing over quality.

Q’s comments on women say more about him than women.
Shallow men are attracted to shallow women. It takes a lot of nerve for him to criticize all women based on his living with a painted-up Barbie doll and her Betty Davis mother.
But I’m sure that they deserve each other.

I keep recommending Kevin Phillips’ “Cousins Wars” to people refighting the Civil War on this blog.
The South and the North were settled by different people. They may have come mostly from the British Isles, but the South was heavy on the Scots-Irish breed, while the North was more English.
They were fighting before they got here, and it’s carried on since.

Just though I’d share an email I wrote to MSNBC reportage of the New York state election going to a Democrat.:
Attn.MSNBC:
Wouldn’t it be a mark of true democracy from our media if only issues like privatization and the global system were discussed in lieu of our budget.
Nobody talks about how much the privatized no-bid contractors are making in the security complex since 9/11. The only reporter who discussed this is Dana Priest and PBS was too scared to delve into the subject on Frontline a few months ago.
All you need to know is that nobody can account for how much money is being spent for so few results.
Our free market fundamentalists will not let go of trying to privatization our “Entitlements” that we have paid into all our lives. They are utterly dishonest, not the democratic party who understand that the costs will be far higher to the people than a fair tax system would be.
Our jobs and salaries have been systematically slashed, our home value destroyed, our interest rates destroyed for the global casino, who are now betting on our life spans.
Nothing will be addressed until, Too Big Too Fail, subsidies to the biggest monopolies of tax payer money and the truth, that no regulations make free markets impossible because all you get is a redistribution of wealth and cronyism is addressed.
We gave up our industrial base to become financial hegemon of the world, but the American people are the biggest losers!

A friend visited and returned with pix…
The out isles, and there are 1000’s [?] of isles..
are as beautiful as Hawaii is or was..
BUT IF A NATIVE THERE THINKS HES BETTER OFF HERE
[WHERE THERE IS RULE OF LAW] WELL…

“These people are here. They are not going anywhere. We are just going to have to make the best of it.”
-marlin-
Marlin – I never said anything about deportation of the people already in the US – not one single time.
Watch this to see the disaster we face if immigration rates are not reduced.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ
“Replacement Level” immigration is the best – non racist, non divisive – suggestion, and it’s in this video.

What popularity? And really, McCain/Palin? BHO campaigned as a pragmatist and said he would try and be President for all, even the citizens that didn’t vote for him. He must be governing from the center, because he’s upset both the right and left wings. Give me a candidate that forces hard change on us and I’ll show you a candidate that has committed political suicide.
Independents, like me, have better things to do than protest what the Fed gov’t is doing (work in my garden, ride my bicycle, think locally, manage relationships, talk to my neighbors).
I guess some have forgotten that JHK continues to emphasize that the Feds will become increasingly ineffectual in the coming years. Stop looking to Washington to solve all our problems.

He’s not governing from the center – he’s governing from the top, serving his corporate masters well.
Just because we, the people, are divided into “right” and “left” doesn’t mean that we aren’t actually really divided into the top and the bottom.
Nice that you can tend your garden, and I mean that sincerely, but there are millions of people who no longer have their normal lives, thanks to BHO. And I’m talking about slaughtered children, war refugees, broken families and the rest that endless war brings to societies.
I care about those people also.

I thought you were a conservative. You know:
*”the gov’t that governs least is the gov’t that governs best”
*”starve the beast”
*”the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”
Why wouldn’t you want the Pres to be in London, i/o finding more ways to steal your money, through taxation?

JSS,
Why do you think it’s preferable to be gouged by each privatized for profit service than to be taxed. You should check out the prices of that which was once public with the price after it was run by a corporation or contractor.
Start with the military vs private contractors–that’s your tax dollars paying them.

Speaking of misogynists, has anyone heard that the legal team of Zionist DSK has made attempts to bribe the assaulted maid’s family in West Africa? Nice! I once worked with a young Zionist who was engaged to marry a gentile. He told me what a hot sister his betrothed had. So hot that he took it upon himself to set up a camera in her bedroom closet aimed directly at her bed. Said he got some nice footage of her “carpet” and hooters. Just goes to show you how Netanyahu and all the nice young perverted Zionists view us gentiles. And you thought they only hated Muslims! Silly! By the way, our bought and paid for CONgress put on quite the display of ass kissing for Bibi the other day. Hope you had a chance to see where all of your money has gone! Too bad Obama had to miss Bibi’s visitation. Then again, Obama might have had to deal with some awfully hard to remove stains from his suit – as Monica was loathe to find out.

Wage,
Allow me to take umbrance on your behalf.
In a give and take forum where people express their ideas and beliefs, there was no place for this. And coming from Mr. I want to protect the greatness of the white race and all, I’m not impressed.
He totally disrespected you as a wife and mother, btw.
Oh great guardian of standards–where are your’s, I ask?
There were shades of “The Collector” by John Fowles implied in his comment. As they say even serial murderers started small.

Again read Brimelow, he goes into this kind of irrational thought about [ahem] ‘our tradition of immigration’ citing facts and figures…
Forgive Marlin, he was having a bonding experience with the invaders.

Wake up Lpat…
‘anti-immigrant, anti-environment’
Pro immigrant is anti-environment…….
thats a fact..ask vlad about the real story on the sierra Club…
Iask you this:
WHY ARE MANY OFTHE WOMEN HERE SUCH MAN HATING, SOUTHERN HATING LIBERAL NAZIS?

Wage,
It was the USSR/Russia that was by far the biggest arms supplier to Iraq. Next biggest were France and China. The evil USA was small potatoes.
This is according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Database:armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/html/export_values.php
From 1950 to 2010 the USSR/Russia exported to Iraq arms amounting to US$31,640,000,000. France and China were next largest with US$5,062,000,000 and US$5,018,000,000 respectively. The USA exported to Iraq arms amounting to US$1,370,000,000.
According to the info given on the site the figures are given in constant 1990 million US dollars. So 31,640 (this is combined USSR and Russian arms exports to Iraq) means US$31,640,000,000 in exports from the USSR/Russia to Iraq expressed in 1990 US dollars. 5062 means US$5,062,000,000.
So the Iraqis were/are armed to the teeth. Blame the Soviets/Russians.
SIPRI website:sipri.org/
Per wikipedia:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute

Wage, I keep reiterating that the US is not the only power on this planet. I must have read 20 times that it was German firms that provided Sadam with the capacity to produce the chemical weapons he used against Iranians and against Kurds in Iraq. The Iraqi nuclear reactor that the Israelis blew up (and which no doubt was meant for purely peaceful purposes) was produced by France. A Canuck engineer (Gerald Bull) and his company were developing advanced long range artillery pieces for Iraq. Bull was shot (5 bullets to the head) outside his apartment in Brussels. Many speculate it was an Israeli hit team.
The USA is a power but it is not the only power. There are others with their own interests.

Sometimes ya literally gotta die to be appreciated. CNBC biz show anchor Mark Haines died last night (age 65 — cause not reported) and the tributes are pouring in. He never let an interviewee get away with a bullshit answer.

8 people shot in the past 2 days in New Haven. Some sort of gang war. People shot (or stabbed) during the past week in Norwich, New London, Hartford and Bridgeport. These are not big cities.
Meanwhile, what’s on the agenda of our State Legislators today? Oh yea, a ‘Transgender Bill’ so transvestites can legally use the ladies bathroom. I’m not shittin’ ya CFNers, its true!
-Marlin

Yes it’s the begining of Art Bell’s super storms. At their height they will cover half the continent at at time. And during winter they will leave 10 feet of snow.
Viewed metaphorically, it’s a war between the cold air of the north and the warm air of the south. In human terms, it’s the conflict between the Whites and the incoming Third Worlders. It can only result in war – one which we are clearly losing. Hopefully Art Bell is right and an Ice Age is close at hand. We may be saved by the snow. And our fur clad ancestors will gradually reconquer this continent and the Light of Civilization will shine forth again in a new Aeon.

Well remember, you called me an ass and I am a Master of Words. And given your identification with the Witch, it just kind of flowed… But in all seriousness, I do hope for your saftety in this time of storms.

She takes her politics very seriously but not herself. Very unlike you or the average feminist. My kind of woman. Don’t care for the Communism though. This creates a tension which we ease with humor.
I think the word you wanted is spelled umbrage. Good word not used enough.

Yes absolutely, that is the last book I ever bothered to package & mail to my favorite British history professor from college. “The Cousins Wars” also explains the differences between the various British protestant churches as well.
The Scots-Irish were the presbyterian borderers in the service of the crown during the plantation of Ireland, so called. They were swineherds and they didn’t take no shit off nobody. They also knew how to distill their own whiskey. That sounds familiar don’t it?
The English of course were and are stratified by class. To get into the great universities at Oxford & Cambridge [collectively “Oxbridge”] you had to go to the right boarding school. Sound familiar? On this side of the pond you practically had to get into Episcopal boarding school if you wanted to go to one of the big three ivy universities. This last was a conscious aping of the English ruling class dating from the Gilded Age, which marked the recrudenscence of federalist Anglophilia. This lead directly to JP Morgan bailing out the British Empire while waiting for the Presbyterian President Wilson to come around to help out our English cousins with a little prompting from the Kaiser’s U-boats. When I’m thinking about this shit I always remind myself that JP Morgan was the richest lay Episcopalian in the United States and that New York city is the only real large Anglican city in the USA, and the final dedoubt of the British army at the end of the revolutionary war during the early 1880s. So to me there is a sort of New York cultural taint to this catering to the British we’ve had since after the Civil War with the attendant rise of Wall Street.
I don’t think that the English are weenies though. At least not the lower class who belong to the off-brand protestant dissenting chapels much as Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army drew heavily from the independent congregationalists and anabaptists in the ranks. Which is why my favorite movies are BRITISH GANGSTER FILMS. Is Ben Kingsley a foppish twit in “Sexy Beast”? No, unexpectedly for an English film he’s a straight ahead brute. Of course foppish twits can be sadists after all, I guess. Kind of like the British army officer in “Revolution” who forced Al Pacino’s character & son to drag a fox decoy across half of Long Island with the lobstertails in hot pursuit on their mounts.

Vlad said, “The role of drugs in society is huge.”
For myself, I abstained from Coffee and all other sources of caffeine for 5 weeks. Lethargy and disinterest followed, not just in the day to day drudgery of existence, but the whole enterprise of “constructive” labor.
A cup of coffee instantly revived that interest and motivation.
The fact is that you cannot separate the chemical and the mental realms. We are the chemicals we ingest, absorb, or synthesize.
Armstrong’s putative drug use and concurrent professional success is no different from the pattern of behavior predicting success in the real world. Unless someone had abstained their whole life, rest assured that anyone’s earned lifestyle was borne aloft on a series of small molecular chemicals and their endogenous receptor sites.
My personal feeling is that the performance differences between populations, cited so many times by Vlad, don’t control for the influence of such things as nutritive or chemical supplementation or deficiency.
All I know is that a rowdy gang of Khat-chewing Yemenis brandishing ceremonial knives makes for a most uncivilized display. Even the Nav’i got high on biochemically-mediated symbiotic interfaces. The Native Americans enjoyed smoking whatever was around, Sage, Kinnikinnick, or what-have-you. The Herbologists carry on this tradition today. The Organic Farming hippies will shove any number of phytotoxic and aromatic chemicals into their mouths along as adjuncts to the make-believe of folk medicine.
Nearly everybody needs drugs to get along, the DEA wants to control this empire of power and money and kicks back to the pols and churches in sanctimonious patronization. It is all just a war on personal freedoms, brought to you by the Democrats and Republicans.

Oddly enough, I don’t think anyone has ever called me a feminist. I’m not sure, but the word feminist describes an activist in a particular political movement. (of which I am not a part)
That said, I do take myself seriously, you’re right about that.

Outcast –
You’re new here, aren’t you?
This comment was so long that I basically ignored it. ShakaZulu quoted that thing about Satan bringing back Hitler while the Republicans cheered – and I thought that was funny. So I went back and read your comment for detail.
Good stuff, in large part, outcast. And the folks on CFN will tell you I’m no conspiracy theorist.
Cash – would you take a look at Outcast’s post and give us the “foreign” perspective?
Wage, what did you think about it?

Hey Wage –
Vlad said, “it just kind of flowed… But in all seriousness, I do hope for your saftety in this time of storms.”
That’s about as close to an apology as I have ever heard our Mr. Vlad approach. Then he added that thing about humor because of you two’s fascist/communist differences.
Ah, humor:
You ever watch Andy Griffith’s shows with Barney Fife, Vlad? Barney was always wanting to physically take on little Earnest T. Bass. Andy always told Barney not to do it by saying, “He’d kill you, Barney.”
That’s what I’m thinking about Wage and LBend.
“They’d kill you, Vlad.”

England is dedicated to the Dark Forces and has been increasingly so since the time of Henry the 8th. That’s why they drive on the left. The Pilgrimages to Jersualem always kept to the right. America kept this tradition while modern satanic Britain reversed it.
As Lewis and Williams put it: Britain is brutal Empire, Logres is Blake’s primordial Land – and England is the resultant of the struggle between the two. This three fold division could be found in many Nations.

It may well be Prog, it may well be. Are you aware of the explosion of violence among young women? As the Chrerokee say, a People aren’t defeated until their women’s hearts are on the ground. Our women are there. And they aren’t “our” women anymore but strong, self determined, independent (married to the Feds), own their own bodies, etc. Might such “independence” and the violence be connected?
Perhaps the Marxist Feminists are right: femininity is just a social construct and our young women want to prove that by emulating the worst aspects of masculinity. But illusion or not, I’m sure you agree with me that the old way was more beautiful.

-The Cousin’s Wars-
Haven’t read it, BubbleHead and Wage. Obviously I need to.
However, I have lived it. My dad’s family (14 brothers and sisters and a thriving mass of children – my first cousins) were straight-up Scotch Irish.
My mom’s smaller family was far more reserved and British.
The difference between those two sets of genes and those two cultures made my growing up years an interesting experience.
That tension thrums along and drives part of my spirit to this day.
———-
I married a girl from a pure Old Atlanta English/Episcopal family. I doubt her family would have let her have anything to do with me – BUT it was the ’70’s, Thank God – and family control had broken down for a while.
We’re still together – going on 31 years, now.
BTW, BubbleHead – nice posts. Please stick around and keep posting.

You’re stretching again, Vlad:
“England is dedicated to the Dark Forces and has been increasingly so since the time of Henry the 8th. That’s why they drive on the left.”
Have you ever heard the idea that cyclonic storms are worse in the Northern Hemisphere because WE drive on the right?
Think about it. Billions of extra counterclockwise air currents created daily – because of driving on the Right.
Should make a person go, “Humm?” or, maybe, “Huh?”

So in other words you’re not buying into the Tudor myth? England was a hybrid mess before America was the same only more so. The ancient Britons of the Roman province of Britannia were driven into the mountains of Wales by the Angles, Saxons, & Jutes. There is a German dialect just to the south and west of Denmark which is nearly comprehensible to speakers of English. The early medieval Anglo-Saxons were set upon by the Vikings who conquered eastern England. Then the Normans came. The English ruling class spoke French until after the Black Death, which is how they got the idea to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. The true royal family of medieval England was the Plantagenets, but they fucked themselves during the War of the Roses which was good for Lawrence Olivier’s acting career, if nothing else. This is a huge historical mess which is why everyone in England is allergic to historical studies. It just goes on too goddam long. That’s what Joan of Arc called the English soldiers who burned her for wearing men’s clothes half a millenium before the advent of Twiggie: the “goddams”.
In Winchester Cathedral there is a medieval cardinal’s grave along with a statue of St. Joan of Arc in a protestant cathedral which also contains Jane Austin’s grave and a monument to whoever wrote “The Compleate Angler” [Isaac Walton]. There’s also a fanciful copy of the round table from Camelot. How can you take them so seriously? In their essence I find the English to be silly, but then I’m just English enough myself that they don’t make me paranoid even though I’m also German and Irish. Prior to the reformation the English were considered to be the best Catholics by the vatican! Maybe that’s why Anglicans are such crappy protestants. Of course the Papal States ended up slaughtering Italians during the Italian revolution.
To me the really cool thing in European history is Byzantium. It would be interesting to make a pilgrimage to Mount Athos to work as a volunteer laborer for the Vatopedi Greek Cypriot monastery, the richest monastery in the world and English speaking to boot.

Grandstanding baloney mark 10 at warp factor 7
That Obama says the west is still the best and the best agency for peace in the world, is pretty much the usual claptrap of exceptionalism and arrant nonsense. Having lunch with Beckham at the Palace helped him bend the facts. Half the world’s windfarms in China, the most extensive rail network anywhere. When the nodding donkeys start creaking and baying, who will be listening to this bloated culumny? Meanwhile Hillary Clinton goes to Greenland desperately trying to nullify the Arctic treaty because they think that the difficult, illusory, vast reserves will keep the economy going, is only going to accelerate the inevitable crash, which is pretty much fait accompli.
Want to know how to drive a Hummer when oil goes to $200? Answers on a postcard to Obama c/o The White House, Plan 9 from outer space.

Many of the Ulster Scots were once proud Celtic clans and the British, masters of divide and conquer, ensured their demise by pitting the most powerful clans against each other. For example, Clan Donald(MacDonald) coined the phrase ” never trust a Campbell” for their duplicitous allegiance with the British. Of course, many of these same Scots united in fierce opposition against their former nemesis in the Revolutionary War as the once vanquished earned revenge and retribution. What goes around comes around, again and again. Which should provide the Vlad’s of the world with a nice karmic shudder.

Marlin, I feel for ya, this country has gone to shit. My wife went to Nathan Hale middle school in NB, CT, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” a true CT. patriot and a real american hero! Almost as good a quote as ,”Don’t Tread on Me!” from the Gadsden flag!

Ah, Faberge ! I can see your inner beauty from where I sit! I am sure you are gilded in gold leaf and smothered in precious stones! can you come by thursday for an omelet? I will throw in some fresh scallions and maybe some baby radishes!hot but sweet ,but o so good. ;0)

call me a yanquee, call me whatch ya will, I luv my place and and I will not go down without a fight. I am not so much a patriot or a love my country type. I don’t follow the guvmint’ line!I just want to live my life as I please and allow others to do the same!

That’s right Buck – we will have our day. As for America – it would have been a great Nation even if it hadn’t rebelled against England. It would have been different – more like Canada. Better in some ways and not in others. What was absolutely necessary was the defeat of the Indians and the French. This victory insured the ascendency of the White Man on this Continent. Anglo Saxons were much more against race mixing than the French or the Spanish.

Yes it took centuries of ethnic struggle to create England – but it has been thrown away in two generations. And some even think that English Culture will survive the Muslim Dominance. How crazy is that?
I love Orthodoxy too. Eastern Europeans are more balanced than Western Europeans – more conservative, ethnocentric, and intorverted/spiritual.

Solaren of California is on schedule to deliver 200MW of power to PG&E in 2016 to there substation in Fresno. It will come from a space based solar power satellite. The cost for this first proof of concept is high at “several” billion dollars. That is as much detail as they will give. But with SpaceX and sunk development cost their next project should have a much lower cost. If they get to $3000 per KW and 20 year lifetime they will change the world. Would love to know who the investors are. Humankind owes them a great big thank you.

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=175312
From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
and check out:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=174921
Kill Thought and Kill Intelligence BIG TIME. After killing Memory and getting rid of this huge pile of crap we must Kill Thought itself, get rid of this pile of crap. Along with getting rid of the deceptions of the “principle of non contradiction” and “principle of identity”, the next thing we must do is get rid of thought, this constant chatter about nothing, this noise, and its corollary logic, language, concepts, the need to “communicate” and “communications”, and also INFORMATION, that’s right the very Reciprocal Information Relationships the universe is made out of, etc. And obviously we must kill Will Power another huge pile of crap, and all of the other structures that are inhibiting us, interdicting us from being what we should not be: and that is totally free and independent Metaphysical – Meditation – Philosophical Machines. And you think they would be afraid of falling into a “contradiction” ? What a joke!
And kill and obliviate all the pain/pleasure circuits that fool of Natural Evolution forced us to have, rebel against god, rebel against the Laws of Physics, show them who the real BOSS is, be your own BOSS.
Pain is the prison guard that forces us to follow logic and thought, but the first thing we will do is get rid of any prison guard like pain forcing us along a constant predetermined path, so free of pain we will be Metaphysical Machines, Emotion and Meditation Machines, pure monolithic blocks of higher states of Existence, Philosophical entities that travel to higher states and break ever more barriers.
One interesting thing about the Technological Singularity is that it was thought that higher “Intelligence”, machines evolving ever higher states of Intelligence would design even “Smarter” ones up to oblivion and Nirvana: nothing further from the truth, the first thing they will do is get rid of Intelligence and Smarts as is counterproductive, useless, must be killed and they would go the exact opposite path: in a way stupider and stupider machines, but something way past anything we can ever imagine, and actually try to get as far away as possible from Intelligence, be as stupid as possible, the exact opposite, and activate higher states of beings, Modified Minds, they won’t waste their Time on such puny noise and chatter , on a one line program when they can directly achieve universes of Metaphysics, Emotion States, and trillions of other entities way past anything even remotely related to us. That is why the path towards the Technological Singularity is actually the Instant Singularity, just stick wires with crazy signals in brains and wild chemicals in the minds and brains as randomly as possible, be as irrational and unreasonable as possible, it will be achieved (as in a faith thingy …).
Now please, design me a new schematic of a possible Modified Mind, one of those that the Automated Modified Mind Generator computers is producing.

Congressman Jim Webb wrote a great book about the Scots-Irish in America. But did this love for his own heritage influence his voting? Not a bit of it: he voted for Eric Holder’s hate bill that protects everyone but Whites. He probably thinks like you that that Race is nothing and that Blacks can be Scots-Irish too. And then you criticize me for writing a speculative post about driving on the Left? As if that is crazier than believing that Black is White? Take out the beam from thine own Eye before you criticize the mote in mine.

Well, Jimbo, your first guess about why the
mainstream media would rather focus on biker
doping than the highjacking of the entire
American economy by financial gangsters was
THE correct reason i.e., the SPONSORS are
some mix of these gangsters and gangsters in
other quasi-monopolies telling reporters to
blow blue sky up America’s collective ass.
You see, they want us to believe in the current
stockmarket rally. They need collective hypnosis
so that they can get out in time themselves.
The financial services industry is creating the
illusion of economic activity through what remains
of the back and forth chit trading on Wall Street.
However, let us “get real” by admitting that
several other industries are participating in
the charade too, most notably HIGH TECH.
Most high tech is about as useless as tits on
a boar but we’re bombarded by images that imply
that all these gizmos add to our quality of life
when everything from lost productivity due to
email and obese kids glued to Xboxes indicates
otherwise.
The founders of Cybernetics warned us (in books
like “God and Golem” by N. Wiener) that the
purpose of computers is to LIBERATE people from
machines. Gadget worshipping is the exact
opposite of what they had in mind. Industrial
robotics was what they had in mind. Get computers
to do jobs that are dangerous and/or where the
precision of computers is vital (like mathematical
calculations). The idea of half the people in
public being fundamentally NOT PRESENT because
of their gizmo mesmerism is making them roll
over in their respective graves as I write this.
Also, the artificial complexity of these gizmos
combined with our obsession/narcosis with/by
them eats up loads of time so that we don’t
think of simple stuff like how to carve out
time for simple things like leisure, our kids,
our spouses, and getting work done for our
employers instead of web surfing on their dime.
We are a fucked up people and our fucked-up-edness
is nowhere more vividly illustrated than in our
relationship with our computing machines and how
it’s getting cozier and cozier as our
relationships with other people and objects grow
dimmer and dimmer.
E.

With a name like Vladimir I guess you would like the eastern church. I was chrismated into the Orthdox Church in the early ’90s by a Bulgarian priest named Father Vladmir at a skid row mission called St. Herman’s House of Hospitality. I did it there because they didn’t require adult sunday school of Catholics who were being received into the eastern church. It didn’t really take and I no longer attend church but I do respect them more than the wimpy western Christians. Besides, it only stands to reason that the holy ghost proceeds from the father THROUGH the son, and that it doesn’t originate with the son, which of course lead to monophysitism as they have in Egypt & Ethiopia where they deny the doctrine of the hypostatic union which is responsible in my opinion for the banal Jesus rantings of the radical protestants who are so insecure about the divinty of Chrrist that they’ve entirely forgotten the father and the holy ghost. Anytime some annoying baptist church lady is ranting “Jaysus” at me I invariably feel like snarling “shut the fuck up you theologically illiterate skank!”
One of the most entertaining spectacles in recent cinematic history was “Children of Men” in which the human race is dying out from infertility and the inhabitants of southern England near Canterbury, the seat of the primate of all England, have reverted to savagery but with a tiny admixture of Hinduism of all things! So there can be no doubt that the British are doing themselves in with all this implosion of the empire immigration nonsense. They might have had a chance if they’d confederated with the white dominions but it’s too late now. Nevertheless I don’t consider myself to be a racist but it is evident that there is some merit to your rantings about the decline of the white man. Let’s put it this way: only white men could have invented the social science known as anthropology. Every other race considers alien cultures to be little more than trash. The European colonists, by deigning to study their “inferiors” will in turn ultimately be subsumed by this tendency when Christianity dies and everyone is dabbling in buddhism. Of course buddhism has nearly died out in its country of origin which of course was India. I too am guilty of dabbling in buddhism so mea culpa. You have admitted in your posts that you’re interested in vedanta, which of course is hinduism. So we’re all fucked at least in terms of cultural consistency.
At one time I was very chauvinistic about the west but I found other church members to be so annoying that they finally lost all credibility in my eyes. If society is going to be rescued then we need a religion that people can actually believe in and not just this radical protestant crap with the hyper-divine Jesus mono-Christ divorced from the trinity practiced by various boobs and yahoos such as phony northern Confederates who vainly imagine that Robert E. Lee was some sort of proto Klansman when in fact he single handedly integrated the communion rail at his Episcopal parish church shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War.

E.
What a coincidence that you wrote about digital toys used to pacify the polity. I was thinking along the same lines yesterday.
With all due fairness to 60 Min this Sunday, it was a 2 hr. show. They led in with the doping story, but the next story was extremely important and I wrote about it on Monday:
[Of far more interest was the Scott Pelley interview NSA whistleblower Tom Drake, who is charged under the Espionage Act for exposing the NSA choice to go for “Trailblazer”, a massively expensive program.
That program epitomizes the neoliberal scheme to give billions of tax payer dollars to private contractors when in fact they already had a government program to be unveiled in Jan 2001, called “ThinThread” with a far smaller pricetag that could have averted 9/11.]
I noticed nobody responded to my post, nor did they respond to the story that for 29 years the issue of radiactivity in the Texas water supply was suppressed and this goes up to the governor, epa and others. No one responded to that post either. One would have to wonder what other dangers lurk that we have never heard about that have a direct impact on our health.
I think one thing we all agree with on CNF is that however you define the system we find ourselves in, it doesn’t work. The only ones who seem happy are the talking heads and their masters who pay them royally. It’s basically a closed loop system and we’re all outside of it.

From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175386
A Wise Guy says:
“Hahahaha, I liked you better when you were talking politics and labour obselescence 9, from whence this insane 180 degree turn came?
Why 9, why do away with thought and communication. My guess is, people weren’t taking your ideas seriously, so you gave up.”
I answer:
I got tired of asking the governments worldwide for CHEAP RENTS and FREE SALARIES, Complete Mass Transit systems in the form of BUSES (especially for the USA, but Obama said no dice jose’), and Rockets to Mars, and trillions of skyscrapers on Mars, trillions of skyscrapers on Jupiter and in the SUN, so I changed topic. They just won’t give it to me, so I had to give up. But they said that maybe the “hobby factory” and “free work” idea may have a chance, go figure…
I found this interesting block of text that I think I wrote (or was that someone else, who knows…?) when I still believed in James Kunstler’s PEAK OIL, Resource Scarcity, everything is ending mythology. I then meditated upon these concepts for a few years and switched my position as I now think that this myth just serves the Dominating Capitalist Class (this language makes me feel a bit nostalgic, it reminds me of when I was a hippy in the 1970s “fighting the system”, cool, who would have ever thought that I would be right back to all of this crap again ? Go figure..).
From:ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?style=1&f=3&t=163929
“Those few that still think, being that thinking will be one of the first activities to end, given that its “energy return on energy invested would be hugely negative”, being that people couldn’t manipulate or change anything anymore, so thought would mostly disappear, but those that would think that there was once running water, free water coming out of a faucet would be flabbergasted and amazed. Just having water, drinking some dirty polluted water from the crowded wells, will seem like absolute paradise, and they would think, people really once had water for free ? from faucets ? they will never believe it. It is like a trillion years of technological evolution according to our “fairy tale extrapolation” of science and technology are closer to us than free water will be closer to them. A technological singularity, a virtual reality matrix is closer and more understandable to us, than just having water will be to them. Just to drink will seem like an absolute paradise after the end of free energy comes to be. There will only be a few millions left on earh after more than 6 billion just starved and died. People got sick and died, there would be no doctors or “health care”, another absolute science fiction item that people would never believe existed.
People will sleep in cars, all the old rusting chevys and buicks, those will be their homes since the old wood homes will have all been burnt to keep warm, and they will think “these once moved ?” how on earth is it even conceivable !?!? our beds once moved by that magic piece of iron in the hood and some mysterious black liquid ?!?! That is not even imaginable many will think. Another thing that will disappear is TIME. Time will flow ever more slowly, everything will flow in an increasingly slow motion. Why measure time, when nothing can happen ? nothing can change, all the motors are turned off, there is no more electricity, computers will be mysterious black boxes, people will look at them as some kind of mysterious magic boxes of the past, maybe some alien civilization left them, who knows what they did or how they “worked”. Why, did things actually “work” once ? No all this can’t be true, it must be some god that came down to the earth and describe a science fiction – metaphysical paradise, it must have all been invented by some mind going crazy because it didn’t drink some water after a few days.”

Texas Threatened with NO FLY ZONE
“In a point by point refutation of the DOJ letter, Simpson compared the battle against the TSA to the Texas revolutionary war against Mexico, writing, “Gentlemen, we find ourselves at such a watershed moment today. The federal government is attempting to deprive the citizens of Texas of their constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 9, of the Texas Constitution. If we do not stand up for our citizens in the face of this depravation of their personal rights and dignity, who will?””
Sam Houston would be ashamed.infowars.com/financial-terrorism-tsa-holds-texas-flights-hostage/

“So we’re all fucked at least in terms of cultural consistency.”
Some of us still have the fortitude to resist evil. Churchianity should die. The Kingdom of God will continue to increase. Resistance is futile.

“I noticed nobody responded to my post, nor did they respond to the story that for 29 years the issue of radiactivity in the Texas water supply..”
-lbend-
L, I read all your stuff with great interest, and respond when I have something to add based on personal knowledge. I have no doubt that the “thin thread replacement” is true. It fits in well with the incredible waste of resources that WE spent on Cold War technology, manpower, and hardware.
There are always advocates for NEW programs.
Older programs lose their advocates because they become “sunk cost” with no new money to be made.
Same think with “selling public property” and relying on “private contractors” to perform what should be government functions. IMO, it all moves forward on paths greased by new money.
The question is, as always, what do we do about it?

Spider,
You resonate better with CFN as a pessimist. That stuff about the miracle of running water is very well done.
I’ve got to say, though, that “kill thinking” and “kill memory” seems indistinguishable from suicide or murder.
What is a human being without memories?

Vlad-
My response to you about the Brits driving on the left was intended as pure humor. You took it as “criticism.”
I think you are so used to being attacked, that you take everything as an attack.
And I can see where you think the fate of Western Civilization hangs in the balance. But here’s the thing –
You are not personally and individually responsible.
Lighten up a little and you will accomplish more.

“You are not personally and individually responsible.”
Never-the-less we will all {collectively} suffer the consequences of our individual and personal apathy.
“Rule by force, not by law: This is where it all begins; when the legal framework that serves to define a country and its behavior is dismantled and intimidation tactics take over. In the most extreme case, drone bombings and assassinations have begun of non-citizens, as well as U.S. citizens, leading only to a debate over whether U.S. citizens should be stripped of citizenship before assassination. Governmental assassinations are in complete opposition to the laws of America and all international laws and agreements. In the last week we have also seen the official elimination of the 4th Amendment in Indiana, which is a clear precedent-setting ruling to say that the State now believes that it owns the property and person of its citizens. As a result, the militarized police have been granted unlimited access, which will only cause an escalation in cases of police brutality and misconduct. This is yet another addition to the precedent set by TSA groping and sexual harassment in airports, Child Protective Services kidnapping children of activists in pro-liberty causes, public school surveillance, and the lawless detention of activists who videotape the police. All areas of society are now ruled top-down through state legislation adopted to justify federal grants that have installed a police state apparatus in America. And these federal agencies such as the TSA actually believe they rule supreme over the states. We now live in a country where CIA abductions, overseas detention, torture and assassinations can be carried out against anyone without due process and without recourse if later cleared; in fact, the Supreme Court has just ended the legal debate by refusing to even consider appeals. Consequently, an atmosphere has been created where the government is permitted to break countless laws, like warrantless GPS tracking of activists by the FBI, while average citizens are guilty of pre-crimes. The increase in executive power under the aegis of National Security is our greatest threat and has led to all that follows.”
a lot of links at the link:activistpost.com/2011/05/10-indications-united-states-is.html

MD, I don’t disagree.
But if I took all that as my personal and individual responsibility to correct – I would go stark raving mad.
People, throughout history, in hideously bad individual circumstances, have still managed to live balanced lives and do good.
We can not fight the sorts of things you describe as individuals. And if we obsess over these things AS INDIVIDUALS, we only degrade our own lives and accomplish nothing. There is power in numbers.

I think we’ve gotten off the subject if we get distracted too much arguing about cultural matters such as the comparative merits of various religions or the desirability of do-it-yourself spirituality versus “Churchianity”. I have heard this term before and I think that I know what you mean by it and I also agree with what you’re driving at.
Your comment could have a peak-oil connection in that a future low energy disconnected world will probably find global institutions such as the historic churches totally irrelevant. My personal problem with institutional churches is that I dislike nearly all clergy and am reluctant to encourage them in their manifest assholism by donating money so that they are enabled to persist in their careers as walking encyclopedias of personality disorders. I also have a problem with persons in general who are adept at adapting to and then using for their own benefit that which is without substance, especially when redolent of middlebrow social repression, bleating weenyism, and various douchebag and cheese-dick [is cheesedick hyphenated?] propensities which are clearly unoriginal and lacking in intrinsic value or true understanding from a gnosis standpoint.
Perhaps this sort of impedimenta will wither away in the world to come once the Exurban Cup Cake Land air conditioned nightmare of family friendly fascism has withered and mercifully blown away. Another anticipated benefit of post oil collapse would be the abollition of public education, an ongoing farce which forces people who cannot afford the attendant property taxes out of their dwellings and vulnerable to the predations of the greedy landlord class.

Churchianity should die.
==
Some good posts of late, MD. You’re starting to see the world through my eyes. You still have a long way to go, with much emotional deprogramming yet to take place, but you’re starting to make progress.
“Churchianity” and “god” are one and the same. They are inseparable. Both were invented for each other, to serve the government mafia and the elite that control it; one as form of mind control propaganda and the other as a form of unquestionable institutional authority. Both of these constructs have ZERO legitimacy in an enlightened world.

NC
The only things we can do is get our message out. That means pointing out that our present monetarist system isn’t the only option.
We need to point out that we need to consider the runaway costs of the privatized monopolies like health care insurance, energy, agribusiness, security complex, and banking are not adding value to this country, but are destroying our ability to keep the consumer based economy going that they say they want.
Without demand, the economy folds exponentially. Without interest rates that reflect reality people can’t make money on their money in FDIC backed savings.
It seems to me that everything they say they like has diametric oppositions built into them. Like the free market with no regulations. It’s impossible since the restrictions that are supposed to be part of the checks and balances would allow for more competition. Instead we get less.
If you privatize Medicare and don’t stop the costs from rising, then it’s impossible for people to pay for it themselves. When they get the hospital bill they’ll understand.
If you like globalism you won’t have jobs here. There won’t be enough revenues collected to support the country and all services will be a la cart profit centers.
When you don’t have good paying jobs you can’t pay for privatization.
You have to keep exposing the discrepancies.

This is definitely back on subject. One has to wonder “why are interest rates so low?” Unless matters are sorted out satisfactorily then people will have no recourse but to continue planning to drop out of society somehow or at the very least avoid unnecessary responsibilities and entanglements at all costs.

Hi Edpell, i read about Soleran and the concept sounds feasible. The problem I see is the energy will be transmitted via microwave energy down to the earth. The beam goes off target and cruises through downtown Fresno and turns everybody there into a crispy critter. Technology goes both ways. Look how well things are working out for Japan at Fukushima.chrismartenson.com/blog/fukushima-update-very-bad-situation/57915

Interest rates are low because we would be adding the interest rates to our debts which would make it virtually impossible to pay back. It’s just part of the rigged system.
I guess now it’s ok for the supply-siders to say deficits mattered after all. Once we went to a debt-based economy there was no other choice.
Big joke on the people, here.
Keynesian economics were far superior. But don’t tell the Reagan is Jesus people that.

“The illusion of economic activity.”
Here’s a good example in my opinion. The IPO of LinkedIn means that the company is now valued at around $9 billion. Huh? Last year, the company’s profits were $15 million.
On another note, I read the San Jose Mercury News this morning and the big front page story is that Oprah taped her last show yesterday. I watched her show three times in the past 25 years.
Last month, our family gave up AT&T U-verse TV. (We still have their internet connection, which is very fast.) They kept jacking up the price, and frankly it wasn’t worth it. We get local stations ABC, CBS, NBC & PBS and that’s it. I’m bummed that I can’t watch John Stewart and Stephen Colbert while I fix dinner, but that’s
the only drawback so far.
Jen

I read your comments also, lbendet.
At a certain point, the careful tallying of the destruction of our society and our environment becomes overwhelming.
If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!
MD’s link is a good one and I share it on Facebook.activistpost.com/2011/05/10-indications-united-states-is.html
Earlier I shared a link about the destruction of our environment. It talks about peak oil, and also about peak water, as well as peak fish. It’s depressing, but worthwhile.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
There are concerned people everywhere, educating others.
But how do we organize to stop it? I am in the Green Party, but we are attacked and marginalized, and we have no money. Contrary to Cash and Vlad’s belief, it’s hard to affect society without the means to do so.
We may just be screwed.

Oh, we are indeed so screwed. There’s also the Coffee party as well, for what it’s worth, but today in this system, money is the only thing that counts.
Look at DKS. He’s now living in one of the finest pieces of real estate in NYC. In the lap of luxury. My sister just told me that when he gets out of jail the IMF he will be getting a $250,000.00 bonus mostly from the US tax-payer—what a system…but those politicians who get single-payer govt. healthcare will tell you we don’t have money for Medicare!!
Cash & Vlad aren’t being intellectually honest if they don’t see this. Even the rich and powerful know that’s why they want to be rich and powerful!
Double standards are what will eventually get people’s attention.

I obviously survived the tornadoes last night, but, let me tell you, it was scary!
We decided to go under the house, into the crawlspace, if necessary. Isn’t that like a basement?
But it’s dank and dark down there, with brown recluse spiders galore, so we kind of hung around waiting to see if there was really a tornado coming.
So when things REALLY got bad, there we were, standing at the windows, looking out.
Exactly what you’re not supposed to do!

“No, I’m just sick of all your bullshit, all your thievery your genocidal machinations your degenerate sickness. We had enough of you fsckers. We want you to get the fsck out of our country our region and go back to where you came from. Take your money take your weapons take your propaganda outlets take your military bases take your thieving corporations take your CIA stooges/politicians and get the fsck out.
And can you pass that on to your boss when you clock out, fscker.”
======
Oh my goodness.
Well, I suppose I could pass that on to my boss, but that would make me like you – batshit crazy.
What is your problem? Are they still making you use the plastic utensils at lunch? When are they going to give you a day pass?
You and Helen Highwater would make a great couple.